Peerless Pilcher

Advantages: Delightful characters, very well-written, eminently re-readable
Disadvantages: None for me personally

...trying to keep up with the neighbours, sending her children to expensive private schools, mixing with the 'right' people - and yet becoming vastly overweight, struggling to keep out of debt, and complaining about all the things she has to do. Throughout the book, each subsequent chapter concentrates primarily on a different character who is in some way connected with Penelope. While this could lead to confusion, Rosamunde Pilcher's skill at characterisation means that what actually happens is we gradually learn more and more about the family and their closest friends. Each different window on a character provides a new viewpoint, and frequently some surprises. Several of the chapters are lengthy flashbacks starting with Penelope's teenage years. She lived in a rather bohemian household in Cornwall with an elderly artist father...

Kukana 05.03.2004 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher

An evocative and moving story

Advantages: Memorable characters of all ages, evocative plotlines, pleasant and satisfying ending
Disadvantages: Too short - and perhaps a little too much use of coincidence

...'The Carousel' is my idea of an almost-perfect book. Rosamunde Pilcher is gifted in her evocative descriptions of places she loves, and her gentle, almost-believable plots; but most of all she brings to life such charming characters that the only problem is having to say goodbye to them when turning the last page. This book focuses mainly on Prue, a young woman who has been brought up in the 'best' of circles, and is going out with Nigel, a nice, upper-middle class young man, whom her mother thinks is ideal for her. Prue is about to go and stay with his family in Scotland, and wondering if she might settle down with him, when her scatty aunt, Phoebe, phones to say that she has broken her arm. Phoebe is an artist who lives in Cornwall. She runs a bohemian and welcoming home, where many struggling artists have been housed...

Kukana 27.08.2003 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The Carousel - Rosamunde Pilcher

The Perfect Book to Take on Holiday

Advantages: Relaxing, excellent characters, range of emotions, eminently re-readable
Disadvantages: Probably won't appeal to those who like fast-paced thrillers and violence

...she can to help, she worries for them, and yet she keeps her own counsel most of the time. She's a delightful person: wise, loving and rather ascerbic. Rosamunde Pilcher has a great gift for writing about the elderly, partly because she took up writing when she was past middle age herself. She also has a gift for writing about children. I found Violet's youngest grandson, eight-year-old Henry, to be one of the most lovable people in this book. He's extremely bright, but sometimes has trouble when he misunderstands things that other children seem to know automatically. Practical and sensitive, he generally worries too much. But he has something to worry about: his father, an old-fashioned upper-class type, is determined that Henry shall go to boarding school now he is eight. Henry's mother, however, is totally against it...

Kukana 22.07.2004 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of September - Rosamunde Pilcher

The perfect holiday read and a wonderful escape

Advantages: Readable, compelling,
Disadvantages: None because it's perfect within its genre

...I first read this book 20-odd years ago. It's still in print, it's been made into a TV film. And it still retains the immediacy and readability which made it deservedly a best-seller. Since Rosamunde Pilcher, now in her eighties, achieved fame in 1987 after decades of wriitng romantic fiction, there have been many authors who have tried to cover similar ground in much the same way. Most of them are formula writers who I'd give a wide berth to as life is far too short to spend reading rubbish. But Pilcher's story deserves a re-read on many counts. It is popular fiction, but has lots of merit as easy-to-read literature. The cosy world she evokes is not some imagined fantasy but is based on her own ( very middle-class) life and values - decency, honesty , human failure - which are timeless. But most of all it...

bookaddict 27.07.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher

Realistic and relaxing reading

Advantages: Believable characters, good descriptions, mostly gentle story
Disadvantages: A bit short, over-melodramatic climax, a few threads hanging

...Rosamunde Pilcher is one of my all-time favourite authors, but 'The End of Summer' is not, in my opinion, one of her best books. Then again, it was a very early one (first published in 1971). If she hadn't become famous for 'Shell Seekers' and her subsequent long, saga novels, I doubt if this would still be in print. * Brief synopsis * This book begins at the end of a Summer in California. The story is related in the first person, by Jane - a young adult from Scotland who looks after her famous but disorganised father. He is away on business at the start of the book. We first meet Jane on the beach with her dog Rusty, when she gets chatting with a holidaymaker and agrees to a date with him. After she goes home, she is startled by a visit from David Stewart, a lawyer from Scotland, who has come to make a rather dramatic...

Kukana 03.10.2003 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The End of Summer - Rosamunde Pilcher

In the Bleak Mid-Winter...

Advantages: Excellent, believable characters of varying ages; satisfying plot; good descriptions; just as good on second read
Disadvantages: None (unless you want fast action and violence in a novel)

...I read this, enlivened mainly by the author's skill in bringing her characters to life. I thought there might be a little family tension, perhaps a blossoming romance, maybe a little travel. I'm a big fan of Rosamunde Pilcher, so I was sure I would enjoy it. It's quite a long book (about 600 pages) and I expected to spend a couple of weeks reading it in evenings. However, I was gripped almost from the start. When I first read 'Winter Solstice', nearly six years ago now, it was just after Christmas. Despite my best intentions I more-or-less abandoned my kitchen and ignored my family, and read the book in just two days. I found myself totally caught up in the lives of the characters, and the many subplots which the author weaves together skilfully. Whereas in one or two of Pilcher's earlier novels I felt that some...

Kukana 17.09.2006 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Winter Solstice - Rosamunde Pilcher

Growing up in the War Years

Advantages: Excellent characters, moving story, realistic historical background, satisfying conclusion
Disadvantages: Very long, a little slow to get started

...'Coming Home' is the kind of book that doesn't fit easily into a genre. It's perhaps primarily a coming-of-age book, but at the same time it's a historical novel set initially in the prelude to World War II, and it's also something of a family saga. It's the third of Rosamunde Pilcher's long novels (over 1000 pages in paperback) and unique amongst them in that it focuses on a young girl rather than an elderly lady, and is based in the 1930s and 1940s. The novel opens with Judith, an independent and sensible girl in her teens, preparing to go to boarding school as her mother and little sister Jess depart to live with her father in Singapore. We see the world through Judith's eyes, and I found her easy to relate to as she deals with the pain of saying goodbye, and the feeling of disorientation as she spends her termtime constantly...

Kukana 05.05.2004 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Coming Home - Rosamunde Pilcher

Fall in love again and again...

Advantages: Well-written, descriptive, interesting and fully developed characters
Disadvantages: Long.

...discuss with each other (they are particularly silent on their respective love lives). They grow up together and learn life's lessons with each other to turn to. This is a saga and has many different 'scenes' within the story, each described beautifully. Some people are put off by a long novel, but please don't let that deter you: this is definitely worth at least one reading and I found it so wonderful that I wished it was longer. Pilcher creates a fascinating world, from the stark beauty and magic of Cornwall to the exotic Far East. There isn't even one part of it that I would prefer to be left out - the story never gets dull or monotonous. Judith has many tragedies in her life, but also has good fortune. When her Aunt Louise dies in a car accident (leaving Judith her not-insubstantial estate), the Carey-Lewises take her under their...

DoubleFantasy11 15.08.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Coming Home - Rosamunde Pilcher

Winter Solstice Warms the Heart

Advantages: Characters are likeable without being sickeningly perfect
Disadvantages: Wish there had been an expansion of other story lines in book

...Just two days ago, I finished reading Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. I had looked forward to Ms. Pilcher's next book with great anticipation, and I was certainly not disappointed. This book centers around Elfrida Phipps, an aging actress, whose career was never stellar; however, she lived a somewhat Bohemian lifestyle with pleasure and few expectations. After the death of her lover, Ms. Phipps decided to leave London for a quieter, more peaceful life in the town of Dibton. There, she purchases a tiny cottage and settles into rural living with ease and elegance. She makes many friends, most importantly Oscar Blundell, his wife Gloria, and their daughter Francesca. When Oscar Blundell's wife and daughter are tragically killed in a motor accident, it is Elfrida who is faced with the task of helping Oscar cope with his loss...

Pelenya 26.07.2001 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Winter Solstice - Rosamunde Pilcher

Warm and Cosy

Advantages: Wonderful characters, well-written, satisfying plot
Disadvantages: No great excitement

...Under Gemini is the story of twins separated at birth, finding each other quite by chance in their early twenties. Perhaps an over-used plotline, and I have to admit that there's an astounding coincidence in the first couple of chapters, leading to their first meeting. Yet somehow Rosamunde Pilcher, who is one of my favourite modern writers, manages to make it seem like a brand new idea. The story doesn't switch between the perspectives of the twins, as I thought it might. Instead it focuses on Flora, a friendly and caring person who was brought up in Cornwall by her father. As the book opens she has just moved to London to look for a job; suddenly she bumps into Rose, the sister she did not know existed. Unfortunately, although they look identical, Rose is totally unlike her twin in character. She cares little for anybody...

Kukana 03.04.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Under Gemini - Rosamunde Pilcher