Coming Home

Product Information

COMING HOME was the first Pilcher book I read and afterward I was captured as one of her biggest fans. Her father works for a British company abroad, and the practice of sending older children to school and leaving them in the care of relatives is not unusual. At 14, Judith is sent to boarding school in Cornwall when her mother and sister leave England to rejoin her father in Ceylon and then Singapore. I love the vitality and complexity of Pilcher's characters, especially Judith Dunbar, the heroine of this story.

Almost from the beginning, I found myself saving this for things like the stationary bike, as it was encouraging me to bike more and stay on the bike longer. Judith is a very strong woman who has become strong due to the circumstances of her upbringing, Judith soon realises that her mother is not a strong woman and so she needs to take charge occasionally and help her mother. Now they both find themselves back at Finley College at the same time and they can't help but wonder what if .Gus remembers a painting he was immensely fond of depicting a girl standing on the edge of a cliff, looking out to see, her hair blowing in the wind. All Pilcher-readers find themselves loving her easy going, narrative voice which is completely refreshing. It is a very immersive historical fiction/women's fiction and a kind of family saga/coming of age with great characters and relationship dynamics. It lives up to my memory pretty well, though I sympathized more with characters that I don’t think I understood well, that I thought were weak or selfish before.

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. Niomi and Toure’s story is essentially right person wrong time and second chance at something between them. This stand-alone novel will serve as either a grand introduction or a beautiful conclusion in the saga of the Baxter Family. It follows 14-year old Judith in pre-WW II Britain for about 13 years -- through pre-war family disruptions, boarding school (where she meets a new friend with an interesting family and a wonderful country house), the war itself (as a WREN, which takes her to Ceylon), and back to post-war Britain to find missing family and sort out her life. She makes her settings and her people so real and warm that you want to belong there and to remain listening to the sea and watching the waves crash on a Cornwall beach.It's certainly not a candy-coated perception of war, and there's a fair amount of heartbreak and devastation throughout the course of the novel, but it is certainly a depiction of the triumph of the human spirit. But, since this is exactly the sort of story I enjoy, character driven historical fiction set in England during the 1930s and 40s, I'll ignore these aspects of her character. Grandfather was incumbent of a tiny parish in Devon, and Grandmother a defeated old lady who had struggled all her life with genteel poverty and vicarages built for huge families of Victorian children. If you are a fan of family sagas, love cozy and comforting reads, admire protagonists who endure hardship and survive, then you will love this monumental work by Rosamunde Pilcher.

I am wife to the love of my life, mom to a special, beautiful son, and a friend to those living with autism through my charitable foundation.He was awarded an OBE in 2007 and a Knighthood in the New Year’s Honours in 2018 for services to literature and charity. In November 2016 Michael Morpurgo won the J M Barrie Award for his contribution to children’s literature. This is my second Rosamunde Pilcher novel, and it is now safe to say that she absolutely needs to be on my list of favorite authors!

They always have made me feel like I was warm and comforted and I think it is only appropriate that she wrote a book that conveys that message so appropriately. It is a moment never to be repeated and indeed the family and friends will never be all together again.

She is eager to contribute to the war effort, especially while waiting for news of her beloved family, who were in the area when Singapore fell. Judith has her father’s sister, Aunt Louise, with whom she is to spend holidays, and makes friends with Loveday Carey-Lewis, who is to have a huge impact on her life and fortunes.