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Summary: Wonderful, new best friend . . .
Review: Penelope Keeling, the central character, is a person I would have liked to have the pleasure of meeting. She is extravagant in giving of her time and self, simple in her pleasures of life, and counts herself fortunate to have lived and loved. She is a strong woman, which is evidenced by the love she feels for her children in spite of their various shortcomings. Her journey through life is both remarkable and ordinary
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Summary: A book you'll read many times...
Review: I'm normally a reader of suspense, lawyer-books and Stephen King-like horror. Occassionally, however, friends who understand my reading habits will refer me to various dramas and family history kind of novels--and once in a while, I'll read them.
How glad I am that I read this one! The main character is one you will remember for a lifetime. The descriptions of England are true to form, and the author's prose is as beautiful to read as that of Anne Rice (although the similarities certainly end there). I have read this twice now and will read it many times more. It sits on my bookshelf of most-beloved books next to "Gone With the Wind" and "The Colony".
Put this on your list to read on a rainy weekend or while laying in the sun during a vacation at the beach!
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Summary: One of my all-time favorite books
Review: This is one of the best books I've read in ages and I love re-reading it. Pilcher's stories create worlds the reader wants to settle into and stay in.Penelope (I see her as Kate Hepburn in "Summertime") has a painting that she especially loves. Her father did it years ago, of her playing on the beach, and titled it "The Shell Seekers." Now her deceased father's paintings have become valuable. When the story begins, Penelope returns home from a hospital stay. She has released herself, feeling that she has sufficiently recovered from her heart attack. She feels an increased sensitivity to life and relationships and she's driven by a need to accomplish some final things with family and friends. There's a great deal to be desired in her relationship with two of her children and with their relationship with each other. They want her to sell the painting and their motives are selfish. As the story progresses, Penelope feels the need to return to her childhood home. She invites each child to go with her and each refuses for one reason or another. So she takes two cherished young friends on a pilgrimage into her past that changes their destinies. And hers. Pilcher creates women characters who are strong and independent and at the same time feminine. Penelope doesn't need a man to help her work through her problems but when one comes along, she's gracious and kind. This book is about values and relationships, hope and dreams, rights and wrongs. It's a delightful story that I hated to end. I wanted it to go on and on and on.
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Summary: Wonderful War-Time Romance
Review: I can't say enough good things about this book. It is a timeless love story that makes me cry every time I read it. Great writing, wonderful characters, a really engrossing read.
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Summary: Beautifully Written
Review: I can't believe it took me this long to finally read this book. The writing is first rate, the characters are nicely developed, and the story weaves together brilliantly. This author makes you care about the characters in the story. Bravo!
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Summary: WONDEFUL escape!
Review: This book had depth, love, history, and decent writing. It's a great vacation book.
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Summary: Wonderfully poignant!
Review: Oddly I was always hesitant to read this novel. Pilcher's coming of age saga Coming Home is one of those "desert isle" books that I could read againa and again. I wasn't sure anything else could be as good. This is, just very different. This is a reflective story of an elderly English lady looking back upon her life, her choices, circumstances in and out of her control, and those around her. Each chapter focuses on a differnt character and their relationship to Penelope, the protagonist. I assumer Penelope would be a typicla little old lady, but she has such depth and opinions of her own. The book wanders around significant events in her life including the turbulent WWII years. I was incredibly moved by the end of this book. Without spoiling anything- the scene where her daughter finds the red drss in her closet brought me to tears. This book celebrates love and life. I adored it and know it will be one I reread!
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Summary: wordy and oddly unkind
Review: Not a bad story -- but there are many extremely long sections that can be skimmed over and which have no bearing on the plot or characters. Also, Pilcher is ungenerous with her characters: we are meant to fervently admire the editor in chief of a fashion magazine, and exult in her "Kingdom" of editing articles about "Your best accessory is you" -- and despise the plump, less intelligent housewife in a stifling marriage. I was unable to admire one nor despise the other, and kept waiting for Pilcher's portraits to shift and become more complex -- but they remained one-dimensional, and readers are simply TOLD what to think about them. To me, there was nothing in this book to inspire the passion that other people have for it.
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Summary: Don't Seek "Shell Seekers"
Review: There is good and bad in everyone, but Pilcher's characters are boringly one-dimentional. Anyone who does not follow the heroine like a slathering lapdog, agreeing with her every whim (some quite questionable, like adultery), is presented as stupid, ugly, fat, and bordering on evil. (The elder daughter, a grown woman, who was overweight (which apparently to Pilcher also means unintelligent), was presented as childish and not even able to add in her head, her children ugly and undesirable company - and this by grandma!) A GOOD mother loves all her children, and does not easily see (or admit) to their shortcomings. Especially she does not discuss these faults in length with her "favorite" child, whose own qualities of self-service and snobbery are presented quite differently: (If) "...the nicer side of her COMPLEX PERSONALITY would shrivel and die and she would be left with nothing but her INBORN INTELLIGENCE and her RELENTLESS, DRIVING AMBITION." I found myself disliking both women. I'm certain that wasn't the intent.
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