Rating: 
Summary: Delightful Read
Review: A thoroughly enjoyable read. Light, humorous and fun to read. At times I laughed out loud. I couldn't help myself. There is one particular scene of a meditation meeting at the local church, which is absolutely delightful. The humour in this scene comes from recognising the truth of the different personalities and Mary Sheepshanks descriptions. While this is not one of my Top 20 all-time books, it comes close.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful Read
Review: A thoroughly enjoyable read. Light, humorous and fun to read. At times I laughed out loud. I couldn't help myself. There is one particular scene of a meditation meeting at the local church, which is absolutely delightful. The humour in this scene comes from recognising the truth of the different personalities and Mary Sheepshanks descriptions. While this is not one of my Top 20 all-time books, it comes close.
Rating:
Summary: A Delight
Review: Dreamy Sonia was once a promising artist. She still paints, but in a vague sort of way. Her real life encompasses four children, a stale marriage to a dull but nice man, and an incomprehensible but fierce devotion to her husband's crumbling manor, Duntan. All of Sonia's passions and hopes revolve around saving the house, which needs extensive and costly repairs. She has, however, no firm plan to save it, and dreamily drifts through her days hoping for a miracle. She manages to do this despite an influx of the most hilarious and finely drawn characters: a part-time cook whose best efforts defy even the E. coli bug; a mother-in-law, Rosamunde, who is part grande dame, part hippy; Rosamunde's late-in-life teenaged daughter Martha, who is apt to go punk at the very worst times; and a shady erstwhile monk, who is described so well we can almost smell him. These creatures float in and out of Sonia's and Archie's life, as does Archie's buxom mistress, who is married to an irritating, French-spouting snob who is called "Jolie Roger" behind his back. Need I say more? This is a great read, charming, evocative, and well-written. It combines real insight with humor and charm.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful fun
Review: Kirkus' review above is reasonably accurate in its description of the plot of this book, but is quite patronizing. Granted, it's not great literature, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. It reminds me of Joanna Trollope, Katie Fforde, and, a little, of Mary Wesley, though I don't think it quite as good as theirs. Can't always have the best, though, and this is definitely a good read. I wonder who Kirkus likes a lot?
Rating:
Summary: Delightful fun
Review: Kirkus' review above is reasonably accurate in its description of the plot of this book, but is quite patronizing. Granted, it's not great literature, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. It reminds me of Joanna Trollope, Katie Fforde, and, a little, of Mary Wesley, though I don't think it quite as good as theirs. Can't always have the best, though, and this is definitely a good read. I wonder who Kirkus likes a lot?
Rating:
Summary: A British gem!
Review: Thanks to Rosamunde Pilcher, I discovered Mary Sheepshanks. Having read everything by Rosamunde, I was browsing the bookstore for another British author. I saw this book, with the words "Rosamunde Pilcher's Bookshelf" on it. What a great idea! I've often wondered what my favorite authors like to read. Like Rosamunde, Mary brings you into the lives of her British subjects. And she has such a sense of humor about everyday life! I laughed hysterically many times while reading this. Why only an eight for a rating? The perfect ten belongs to Rosamunde.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing book
Review: This book had its amusing scenes, but it was too predictable. I read the excerpts here and Rosamunde Pilcher's comments about the book and bought it because of those. I'm glad I bought the paperback edition.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing book
Review: This book had its amusing scenes, but it was too predictable. I read the excerpts here and Rosamunde Pilcher's comments about the book and bought it because of those. I'm glad I bought the paperback edition.
Rating:
Summary: Characters come to life in this book
Review: This is my first experience of Sheepshanks but it won't be my last. Her beautifully written characters are the part of this book I liked best -- particularly the children and adolescents, who are notoriously difficult for writers to get right. Each of the children/adolescents were distinctive and believable individuals. The "heroine" is flawed but likeable, as is her husband and even the vastly annoying mother-in-law. The plot involves an upper class (but not particularly rich) British family living in a wonderful manor house that is falling down around them. There's no money to fix it up (it will take millions) and the husband (who inherited the house, which has been in his family for 200 years) wants to move to a smaller house nearby and sell the white elephant. His wife loves the house and is determined to find a way to continue living there. There are four children, a couple who no longer seem to love each other, a mother-in-law who is wealthy but brings trouble everywhere she goes, a supposed "monk" (brought by the mother-in-law) who is part of a secretive organization called the Brothers of Love, the husband's half-sister, a 16-year-old who gets into scrapes, and a couple of lovers. Unlike so many books, which could be improved by being edited to be shorter, this book could have been 50 pages longer and I think would have been better. Some scenes that would help the plot seem to have been left out (like people abruptly falling in love with too little description -- suddenly they're there without the reader quite understanding how they got to this point.) I also felt that the ending illness was contrived and detracted from the literary merit of this book. Nevertheless, this book has real literary merit but is also quite readable. I read it in a couple of days because I was enjoying it so much.
Rating:
Summary: Characters come to life in this book
Review: This is my first experience of Sheepshanks but it won't be my last. Her beautifully written characters are the part of this book I liked best -- particularly the children and adolescents, who are notoriously difficult for writers to get right. Each of the children/adolescents were distinctive and believable individuals. The "heroine" is flawed but likeable, as is her husband and even the vastly annoying mother-in-law. The plot involves an upper class (but not particularly rich) British family living in a wonderful manor house that is falling down around them. There's no money to fix it up (it will take millions) and the husband (who inherited the house, which has been in his family for 200 years) wants to move to a smaller house nearby and sell the white elephant. His wife loves the house and is determined to find a way to continue living there. There are four children, a couple who no longer seem to love each other, a mother-in-law who is wealthy but brings trouble everywhere she goes, a supposed "monk" (brought by the mother-in-law) who is part of a secretive organization called the Brothers of Love, the husband's half-sister, a 16-year-old who gets into scrapes, and a couple of lovers. Unlike so many books, which could be improved by being edited to be shorter, this book could have been 50 pages longer and I think would have been better. Some scenes that would help the plot seem to have been left out (like people abruptly falling in love with too little description -- suddenly they're there without the reader quite understanding how they got to this point.) I also felt that the ending illness was contrived and detracted from the literary merit of this book. Nevertheless, this book has real literary merit but is also quite readable. I read it in a couple of days because I was enjoying it so much.
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