I was lucky enough to read an advanced copy of this delightful collection and chose a story a day. It was like picking out scrumptious chocolates from a luxury assortment. Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers, Hodder & Stoughton.
Reading this anthology of short stories was like being wrapped in a cashmere shawl and travelling back to the recent past where people drank sherry before dinner and seemed to have more time. The settings are slightly vintage, with country houses where “the great beeches [which sic] made a pleasant soughing sound in the wind from the sea…” in large homes where there is no central heating: “It was a very cold house and chill seeped up from the flags, and a thin draught drifted down the staircase.” So evocative. And fires with “logs smouldering in a bed of ash in the great hearth, the books and magazines scattered about, a bag of untidy knitting.” I stepped into these locations effortlessly through the author’s clever writing.
Invariably, the sea side setting appears. Of all the wonderful stories, Skelmerton is my favourite – it has a ghostly quality to it, opening with the most beautiful description of a “sea mist which had come in from the east like a cloud of grey smoke, sliding along the sand as though it were being blown beneath a door…”
The characters drive each story. They are love stories – of love in its infinite variety– often about young girls finding themselves – of heroes who are ordinary but special. As Pilcher writes:: “Loving a person… is not finding perfection, but forgiving faults.” One of the male characters says: “It’s your family makes a home.” Rosamund Pilcher seems to love people and she is mistress of portraying ordinary, slightly flawed characters with whom we can identify. Vulnerable, fragile characters who have to find their way.
I love the dated feel of the worlds she portrays – very nostalgic, taking me back to my childhood, but the messages behind the stories are applicable to any era. The older women have hair that is “grey, discreetly blued, never a curl out of place” (like my own mother during the 50s and 60s). Young men appear at perfect moments “behind the wheel of a dashing red car.” The descriptions of the characters are so spot on – you can picture them standing before you: “She stood there, stringy and tanned like a length of old rope, her white hair on end, her tweeds lanky, her lavishly darned stockings wrinkled and sagging…” We just don’t mend our tights anymore and I loved these snatched glimpses into the past.
The black and white etchings of each heroine are charming and I would have them on my walls.
I am going to buy myself a paperback copy of this ebook and keep it on my shelf to pull down when I need a special moment to myself. Highly recommended reading that will lift you during this difficult period we are experiencing. Treat yourself. to this five-star read. Go on! Find a saggy, chintz armchair, a log fire and a glass of sherry and indulge…

Author Lucinda Riley writes in this volume's introduction that when asked to write it she felt emotional as it took her back to her teens when she read "The shell seekers". That's exactly how I felt when I saw on NetGalley that a new book by Rosamunde Pilcher was being published. I still remember "The shell seekers" and "Coming home" as two books that marked my teenage years (although I can't remember much about them now). It might be that I remember those through rose-colored glasses and should I re-read them now I would not think the same about them. That's why it pains me to say that "A place like home" is not worthy.

This collection of short stories is so outdated nowadays. They certainly have not aged well. Each story presents a woman whose main worry in life is to have a man beside her. The message most of them convey is that if you're a woman and you're single you have failed in life, that you won't be truly happy unless there's a man in your life. Even those characters that begin saying they are independent, more work oriented and don't need a guy, end up with one, cause romantic love seems to be the only kind of love possible.

Most of the conflicts these characters have are pretty silly and the romances described quite unreal. Everyones seems to fall madly in love with each other just with one look and marriage proposals are said like you say good morning. So annoying!

I can't honestly see any modern reader, specially any woman, enjoying these stories as I'm sure they would have been enjoyed when written last century.

Note to self: stop reading books and authors you enjoyed when you were a teenager or you'll end up being disappointed time and time again.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Easy reading, always enjoyed Rosamunde's style of writing. Some more enjoyable than others but good to pick up and down.