Coming Home

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Because they had no establishment of their own to return to, Aunt Louise, primed by her brother Bruce, had taken matters into her own hands, located Riverview House, and leased it as a furnished let. Soon after they took up residence, Jess was born in the Porthkerris Cottage Hospital. And now the time had come for Molly Dunbar to return to Colombo. Jess was going with her, and Judith was remaining behind. She envied them dreadfully. She was not one to show emotion. She sat there, a well-built woman in her early fifties, with legs of surprising thinness and elegance, and long narrow feet shod in brogues polished to a chestnut shine. She wore a tweed coat and skirt, and her short grey hair was marcel-waved and kept firmly in control with an invisible hairnet. Her voice was deep and husky from smoking, and even when she changed for the evening into more feminine attire, velvet dresses and embroidered bridge coats, there was something disconcertingly masculine about her, like a man who, for a joke or a fancy-dress party, puts on his wife’s clothes and reduces the assembled company into shrieks of glee.

Course you could. She can scarcely say no. Going away, and not knowing when she’s going to see you again, she’ll give you anything you want. You just strike while the iron’s hot”—another of Mrs. Warren’s favourite sayings. You can feel her desperation to be reunited with her children and her shopping trip to buy some more traditional clothing is particularly bittersweet. She is an individual but wants to create the right impression with her children.

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Coming Home is not a great work of literature, that's for sure. It has little, if any literary merit. Why do I like it then? I'm not even sure, but there is something wonderfully familiar about it, something cozy, human and warm about the story itself. Perhaps it is the sum of all those human stories (and there are a lot of stories and characters in this one). Somehow when I look at all those human stories together, they do manage to convey a message. 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. The dialogues between the characters were often well written, I have to give credit to writer for that, but that was hardly enough to make the characters seem more real. I mean when it really comes down to it, it is a romance novel. 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.

I had the pleasure to receive a copy of this book from GoodReads and HarperCollins. This was the first book I have read from Fern Britton, and I know it won’t be my last for sure! Sennen abandoned her family when she was 17 leaving her two young children to be cared for by her parents. I love the author's style. The more brash, brutal and crude contemporary novels become, the more valuable author's such as Rosamunde Pilcher and Maeve Binchy will be as a counterbalance in this family/romance genre. And the other thing is, that it’s so far from everywhere. I won’t be able just to hop on the train any longer, and the nearest bus stop’s two miles away. And Aunt Louise won’t have time to drive me around, because she’s always playing golf.” Fern Britton cleverly mixes the modern-day story with that of the disappearance of Sennen all those years ago, she also tells how Adela and her husband Bill met and fell in love. This is seamlessly done and I particularly enjoyed Adela and Bill's story; a true and endearing story that really captured my imagination.I loved hearing about all the various stories involved, although Henry really didn't come off that well, I can understand his anger. I loved getting to know Ella and Kit a lot better and the situation with Sennen had me gripped at all times.

We're told that when the Dark Ages began, and electric cars wouldn't work, everyone switched to horses. Which of course were plentiful then, right? She pulled off her coat and her woollen hat and dumped them on a chair. Phyllis didn’t say, “Hang them up.” Sometime, she would probably hang them up for Judith herself. I loved the way the story evolved, with the shattered feelings being hurled in Sennen's face and the way she turns to her childhood friend for a little support. You can feel Ella's need for her mum in her life and the relationship building between them. Fern Britton anchored the Pride of Britain Awards in 2002 and was one among the panellists on the satirical panel show, Have I Got News for You.This is only the second Rosamund Pilcher title I have ever read, and I loved this one as much as The Shell Seekers, for many of the same reasons. 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.