Coming Home

Product Information

The red and green riding lights of fishing boats dipped in the swell and sent shimmering reflections down into the inky water. One of the UK’s best-loved authors and storytellers, Michael was appointed Children’s Laureate in 2003, a post he helped to set up with Ted Hughes in 1999. It was a solid Victorian edifice, built of granite blocks, and had three entrances, marked Boys, Girls, and Infants, a legacy from the days when segregation of the sexes was mandatory. Gulls hung screaming overhead, and the thunder of the waves was continuous, creaming up onto the shore, and then drawing away again, with a tremendous hissing sound.

The story itself seems to flow quite well, albeit sometimes in a manner that is not entirely convincing. My 84 year old Nan read this and loved it, my 58 year old Dad read this and loved it so when it was passed on to me, at the time an 18 year old, I did not expect to get beyond the end of chapter one. This book literally beckons you to sit and have a cup of tea, cozy up on the couch and with the radio playing softly in the background ~~ and this book will take you away. I couldn't decide what books to read when I have my surgery ~~ and I was browsing through my shelves when I saw this.Charlie, the engine driver, knew Judith too, and was good about holding the train at Penmarron Halt if she was late for school, tooting his whistle while she pelted down the garden of Riverview House.

This was a great book for fans of WW II fiction and sprawling family estates albeit with some pain and love and a marvelous Christmas experience ❤️ I still love Winter Solstice best of her novels- but this is far more complex and really makes you care about everyone in the book, while Winter Solstice was a fun Christmas romp. I found it hard to relate to any of the characters on a personal level because they felt somehow distant, like I was hearing their story narrated by a random person who is only semi-interested in them. COMING HOME was the first Pilcher book I read and afterward I was captured as one of her biggest fans. Judith’s hopes, disappointments, loves, losses, and her own contribution to the war effort are all meticulously portrayed through the sensitive and skillful writing of this accomplished author. I usually don't have mixed feelings about romance books, because usually I don't like them, as romance is not really my kind of genre, so my mixed feelings actually indicate something positive about this novel.Teachers frequently comment that a child can learn more in a week on the farm than a year in the classroom. One would have thought, that after so many books I would have been accustomed to such goodbyes and voids. A ‘coming of age’ novel is just about my favourite type of book and I felt like I entered into the world of Judith Dunbar and the 1000 or so pages just seemed to turn themselves as I got totally absorbed into Judith’s world and that of her adopted Cornish family.

Facing bleak holidays with her widowed, golf-obsessed Aunt Louise, the girl is overjoyed and a bit overwhelmed when she's often invited by classmate Loveday Carey-Lewis and her glamorous and wealthy family to spend time at their estate. All in all a great listen if you want something quick with a dash of emotion, heat, and some laughs. The book is filled with many happy moments and perhaps even more heart-breaking ones, but always there is hope and strong survival skills working to make things right in the end. My heartfelt thanks to my friend, Sara, not only for introducing me to Rosamunde Pilcher, but for making this another memorable buddy read!

Having finished the novel for the second time, I feel devastated that all the lovely people with whom I've lived for several days are now out of my life. It follows a girl (left in boarding school in England while her family goes to Singapore) before, during, and after WWII and goes back and forth between Cornwall, London, and various South Pacific locations. We are opposite sides of the same coin and, although his work has never influenced mine, I admire the eloquent, considered voice of his best books. A gripping historical fiction about (mostly) a bunch of young people, who loved, dreamed and lived in hard times.

They emerged in small groups, jostling and giggling and uttering shrieks of cheerful abuse at each other, before finally dispersing and setting off for home. The book is beautifully written and a joy to read, I highly recommend it to everyone and I award it a massive 5 Dragons out of 5. The writing is not pretentious, the people feel real, everything that happens is described so clearly that I still feel I am in Judith Dunbar's Dower House listening to the rain on the roof.

Singing games had been played, and relay races won, up and down the assembly hall, with bean bags to be snatched and delivered to the next person in the team. I cried with Judith, worried with her and for her, sometimes wanted to give her a shake, but mostly cheered her on her journey through life. The narrow beach in front of his hut was littered with all sorts of interesting bits of flotsam: scraps of rope and broken fish boxes, bottles, and sodden rubber boots. Coming Home is definitely a big theme running through the book, but for me is most central for Judith and Gus.