Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as I expected!!
Review: I found Winter Soltstice to be pretty boring. And I'm not one to give up on books so I read the whole thing through. ... And I'm not the type to think all this books are boring like some people b/c I love classics & things & books don't have to be fast paced for me to enjoy them. But I really couldn't stand this book. Two stars was being fair!!! I really liked it in the beginning but it tapered off to be real boring & I had to push myself to finish it. I wouldn't recommend you read this but just click on my name & see my info. & a lot of my other reviews are of good books you should read!! :)
Rating: 
Summary: My favorite Rosamunde Pilcher novel
Review: I couldn't put it down. I loved all the characters and the storyline, although some might say predictable - it just what I look for in a novel. It is a warm, cozy read for a night by the fire or under a shade tree in the summer.I have read all of Rosamunde Pilcher's books (all of them), and would recommend them to anyone who longs to be in a quaint setting on the British Isles with interesting and complex people. This is a book you can completely loose yourself in and let your dreams and imagination soar. My wish is she would write a sequel to this book.
Rating: 
Summary: All's well that ends well
Review: Rosamunde Pilcher follows the lives of 5 different people and tells us by flashbacks how they have all been battered and bruised by the people and circumstances of their lives. They are so unhappy that none of them anticipates a proper Christmas celebration, even with the holiday only a few days away. Through varied sets of circumstances, they all find themselves in an estate house in Scotland during the winter solstice. Though some of them have never met, they bond together through their mutual pain and form a support group for one another. I had some trouble getting into the book and found it slow-moving at first, but my persisitence was rewarded by the heart-warming ending.
Rating:
Summary: A reading gem to thaw any heart.
Review: This is the first novel that I have ever read by this author and I loved it grandly. It has been a very long tome sine I have so thoroughly enjoyed a novel. Ms. Pilcher brings five different people together from different worlds....different ages, social classes, etc. They are all experiencing various types of losses and heartaches, and yet, brought together in a snow storm in a grand old house in a tiny village in Northern Scotland, they all somehow evolve into a single unit, and grow from the experience. At a time of the year, Christmas, which can be very difficult for many people, these five people discover joy and happiness, and none of their lives will ever be the same again. The plotting is very predictable, but that makes the story all the more comfortable...you want everything to work out well for these five people, who all need to heal, and who all deserve the happiness which comes to them, one and all. I heartily would recommend this book to anyone who wants an old-fashioned good read, a novel which will make you smile, even as it will make you weep.
Rating:
Summary: Cosy as a warm fire in winter.
Review: I found this to be a truly gorgeous book with real people behaving in a real way. Elfrida, a retired actress in her 60's, lives in a tiny cottage with her dog for company and meets Oscar,a retired organist,his wife, the wealthy and domineering Gloria and their daughter,Francesca, a very likeable 14 year old (a contradiction in terms! )They form a friendship and when tragedy strikes with the death of mother and daughter , Elfrida agrees to accompany Oscar to Scotland where he will take up residence in an old house which he has inherited ,having been kicked out of his former home by Gloria's avaricious sons. .In rather bleak conditions,they set up house just before Xmas and are soon joined by Carrie daughter of Elfridas cousin and her niece Lucy an unhappy 14 year old who is emotionally neglected by her mother and grandmother ( a thoroughly nasty pair !) This is a tale of people overcoming grief and lonlieness and coming together to share Xmas and a healing time together. It's not a mawkish story but warm and cosy with a feeling of belonging .Ms.Pilcher is so very good at recreating country scenes with an absolutely right touch and I'm sure that her readers will not be disappointed by this delightful book.
Rating: 
Summary: winter solstice
Review: Other reveiwers have described plot. I want to say that I expected more. The plot was very predictable, simple and contrived. All and all this was a waste of my good reading time. I feel Pilcher has riped us off. It was not "Shell Seekers"!!
Rating:
Summary: Another success!
Review: Rosamunde Pilcher has done it again. I absolutely love this author. I find her characters so endearing, and she almost always manages to bring together a raggle-taggle group of people to form a coherent, friendly crowd. In this story, the characters experience a wide range of feelings -- lonelines, mourning, excitement, apprehension -- and end up coming together for the holidays in a small house in a village. It's not necessarily the way the story ends, it the way she weaves the story and makes her characters so likable that does it for me. Of all the books she has written, this is my third favorite (next to The Shell Seekers and September).
Rating:
Summary: Tedious & implausible
Review: I found this book very disappointing! (I'd read "The Shell Seekers" & "September" some time ago and loved them!). Elfrida was a very unlikable character and Oscar even more so, especially the plot line of making us believe that a close romantic relationship could take place in such an ridiculously short period of time....c'mon!! When they moved into Oscar's new place shorttly after the death of his wife & child, Elfrida says he was having nightmares, ...... is the cure to have sex? Why did she feel from the start that when they moved to Oscar's new residence that he would be up for a relationship like that anyway when all along they'd been nothing but friends? How disrespectful to his dead wife and child! I tried to plod on through this book always hoping that around the corner, it would pick up and turn into a good story but everything became more & more dull and implausible. Don't bother will this one!
Rating:
Summary: I want to live in Creagan too...
Review: Certainly one of Rosamunde Pilcher's best (and all her more recent books are wonderful), I first read Winter Solstice over Christmas 2000. When I saw it on top of a library cart last week, waiting to be reshelved, I couldn't believe my good luck and had to re-read it. If there was ever a tale of second chances and new tomorrows, this is it. Life in all its stages is played out wonderfully through five major characters, aged 14 to 67. From deep, sorrowful grief, to lost loves and teenage angsts, Pilcher draws us into...well, life. I love the way that circumstances throw together these here-to-fore strangers at one of the most emotionally wrought times of the year, and they all meshed together in a familial and mellow (must be the whiskey) way. Rosumund Pilcher has a way of thoroughly ensconsing her readers in her geographic settings, and this one in Northern Scotland is my very favorite. Despite it's only apparant drawback (slightly predictable, but in a charming way), this is one of my favorite books by this or any author.
Rating:
Summary: A good read
Review: What a nice book! Nothing earthshaking or experimental, just a story about several people moving through life, making connections with each other, and finding happiness after loss and disappointment. Yes, the characters and plot are at times predictable, and not always entirely sympathetic, but they were basically believable, and certainly held my interest. It struck me as somewhat old-fashioned, but I found it soothing. Not something you'd write a dissertation about, but perfect for a vacation.
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