Coming Home

by Rosamunde Pilcher

Hardcover, 1995

Genres

General Fiction

Collection

Diamond Building Library

Publication

St Martins Pr (1995), Edition: 1st, 728 pages

Description

Against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, #1 New York Times bestselling author Rosamunde Pilcher's Coming Home tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home...In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore. At Saint Ursula's, her friendship with Loveday Carey-Lewis sweeps her into the privileged, madcap world of the British aristocracy, teaching her about values, friendship, and wealth. But it will be the drama of war, as it wrenches Judith from those she cares about most, that will teach her about courage...and about love.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member DivineMissW

Wonderful book. I love Rosamunde Pilcher's books. I call them my Sunday afternoon books. Luxurious details, wonderful characters delightful stories. I am reading this one for the second time just for the sheer joy of it.

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LibraryThing member MrsLee

A very detailed story about a young woman, Judith Dunbar, who mostly lives in Cornwall, except for some years she lived overseas with her family, and during WWII. In extensive detail, it covers her friends, her surroundings, her thoughts, her actions and the actions of everyone around her. In great

detail.
I loved Rosamunde Plicher's book called "Winter Solstice," but have not been very successful at loving other works of hers. This one had enjoyable characters to a point, but everything was so neat and tidy. Even the bad stuff. The fairy godmother of the tale, Diana, struck me as just that, fairy tale fodder. There was such an unreality to her that I kept having echoes of "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier run through my mind. The story did not take that twist however. I only managed to finish this by extensive skimming. It was much too long, since events and news were repeated over and over as Judith ran into other characters; retelling in detail (did I mention there is a lot of detail?) everything which had already been told to the reader. It felt like the stories which I tell myself at night to put me to sleep. I use copious amounts of detail, which I have to go over the next night and the next because it is so dull I fall asleep before finishing the story. Which may be why it took me a month and a half to read this book.
It is quite possible that someone else may love all the details lovingly crafted; Pilcher is very good at descriptions, but never again for me.

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LibraryThing member Ocean_Mist

Words can't describe properly what a powerful and well-written story this is. It was worth every single page and I highly recommend it. The story deeply touched my heart.

LibraryThing member turtlesleap

In this book, Pilcher allows her readers to experience the period from 1935 through the end of World War II from the perspective of a young English girl, only fourteen when the book begins. As always, Pilcher writes of the war experience in England without sentimentality, making no effort to

romanticize the dreadful experiences of the people who lived through that time. Her characters are flawlessly drawn and utterly engaging. Her descriptions, and in particular her descriptions of places, draw the reader in to luxuriate in the beutiful homes and beautiful countryside that was part of England in the 30's. I believe this is one of Pilcher's best books and, while it is quite long, it's the sort of book in which you can lose yourself.

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LibraryThing member jlapac

I read this book over and over, periodically (not constantly). I like it because of the vivid descriptions as well as the great characters. Most recently I have read parts of it twice as I tend to blow it through the last half of the book pretty quickly, especially after not reading it for awhile.

The last half is really good, but the parts I skip are the descriptions, which are worth savoring.

The story starts in Porthkerris, Cornwall in about 1935 with the main character, Judith, leaving a council school to start the winter term (after Christmas) at a new boarding school. Her mother and baby sister are going back to Ceylon to rejoin the girls' father after 4 years of being on their own in England. Judith's family is a British-India family and her father works in Ceylon. The story tracks Judith's life over a 6 year period after her mother returns to Ceylon, as World War II starts and eventually ends.

This is a long book - 900 pages, but a real page turner and well worth the thickness of the book. It is a typical Rosamunde Pilcher novel, but longer. It is a great airplane/travel book.

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LibraryThing member LynetteS

I think I read this story at least 3 times. It is one of my all time favorites. Anytime I see a copy at a library sale I grab it to pass it on! I am really going to have to get a new pristine version!!!

LibraryThing member SquirrelHead

Do you like big fat books, the sort that tell a family saga and have you so immersed you are sorry to see it all end? This is the book for you. It's set in the time period before, during and then after World War I. You'll read about Judith Dunbar who, at age 14, is left behind at a girl's school in

Cornwall while her mother and little sister depart for Singapore to join her father.

This story takes you through Judith's younger years in England and her great friendship with the wealthy Carey-Lewis family. The hardships of war, the only son of this affluent family leaving for his military service and the traumas of this time period. There are happy times, revelations and tragedy - you are invested in each situation and get to know these people well.

If you're an Anglophile, you will love this book.

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LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle

Rosamunde, darling, your novels are my guilty pleasure, but a thousand pages of middle class bleating is rather trying on the old sensibilities. I really only bought a second hand copy of this weighty tome because I could have sworn that I'd abandoned the story midway through, many years back, only

to keep remember rather more and more as I read on. I think I must have given up with only the last two hundred pages to go. That'll teach me.

Anyway. While I raved about The Shell Seekers, I found myself rather more critical of Coming Home. I do love the Carey-Lewises, cliché ridden ensemble of romantic stereotypes though they are, and their beautiful Du Maurier style house in Cornwall, Nancherrow, but I could cheerfully throttle hearty heroine Judith, and the jolly hockey-sticks dialogue spouted by each and every character doesn't help. Judith is a horrid combination of Austen's Fanny Price and Gaskell's Margaret Hale, insufferably noble and beloved by all (she also has a curious combination of blonde hair and dark eyelashes, but at least she doesn't have violet eyes, like her friend Loveday). Packed off to boarding school at fourteen, Judith is plagued by a series of unfortunate events which leave her 'independent', not to mention 'pretty' (Pilcher's highest accolade for her female characters) and smart. She is assimilated by the aforementioned upper class Carey-Lewises, who drift through life on a cloud of liberal lifestyles and idyllic Cornish landscapes, bestowing the fairy dust of charm and patronage on assorted hangers-on. Daughter Loveday is at school with Judith, but there is also golden boy Edward and - wait for it - Athena, plus parents Diana and the Colonel, in the family of posh eccentrics. Everything is too this and frightfully that, and everyone is a darling or a dear. I think I might have found them all too, too amusing if Judith was more of an antidote, but she simply drips with the same ridiculous phrases. Did people really talk like that in real life, and if they did, please tell me that nobody this side of the 1950s still does? And the period-accurate, but still grating, insistence that all 'pretty' young women must ultimately wish to get married and have babies, also sets my teeth on edge - Judith/Rosamunde refers to a senior female officer in the WRNS during the War as an 'embittered old hag of a spinster' and a 'prune-faced woman with a power complex' because she puts duty before giving Judith the weekend off to lunch with Diana and Loveday!

The author is more of a storyteller than a wordsmith, granted, but writing 'her knees literally turned to water' (are you sure about that?) and starting sentence after sentence (after sentence) with 'as well' are not easily overlooked after the first five hundred pages. In fact, the whole novel could have been comfortably reduced to five hundred pages, because bar a handful of unlikely plot twists and hackneyed romantic devices, nothing much really happens. Rosamunde Pilcher could learn a lot from Daphne Du Maurier!

An epic aga saga for readers who suffer from rose-tinted nostalgia.

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LibraryThing member crazeedi73

Excellent, just excellent, never wanted it to end

LibraryThing member lilypink

Since discovering this book about 10 years ago, it is the only book I have read and re-read yearly. It is hands down, my favorite book. I stole it off my grandmother's shelf and have been in love with it since. Every character has a place in my heart. It is a long, wonderful, cozy story that I love

to curl up with. I've had many friends read it, and nobody has quite the same affection for it that I do, but it will always be my favorite.

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LibraryThing member jbarr5

Coming home by Rosamunde Pilcher
Have read some of the author's other works and have enjoyed them.
Book starts out with one life that starts out as a young teen and her world is turned upside down.
1935 and Judith Dunbar and her friend Heather Warren are attending school where Christmas parties are

just ending and they are on their way home.
Judith will not be returning once school starts in the new year. She will be going to the strict St. Elizabeth where they have uniforms and she will be a boarder. Her mother and toddler sister would return to the Far East as they join her father who's working.
Very long book but worth all the detailed descriptions of not only the surrounding countryside but her feelings along the way. Broken up into her teen years and adult years.
Story also follows people she and the family meet over the years. Love parts about knitting for the troops as I've done that recently myself.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).

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LibraryThing member Northern_Light

This is the story of Judith who at the age of 14 goes to boarding school while her mother and sister go to join her father in Ceylon. She makes friends with Loveday whose family welcome her as a daughter giving her a home to go to at holiday times. Within a few years WWII starts and everything that

seemed solid and safe before changes and no-one will come out the other side without scars, whether physical or psychological.

This was a good read although a little long in places and very middle class in attitude with everyone having servants of some kind, even Judith who is just a little too goody-goody as well.

The story takes a while to get going but once the war starts it becomes much more interesting and involving to read. Judith decides she has to do something for the war effort and she comes into her own here and through her experiences we too live through the experience.

Other characters to note are Gus who seems very much a peripheral character but has his own story to tell and also Loveday's mother Diana married to an older man who escapes up to London from Cornwall whenever she can.

I am somewhat puzzled by comments from other reviewers who constantly re-read this, I don't feel it's in that category at all.

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LibraryThing member riverkatie

My least favourite of her books.

LibraryThing member danhibbert

There was a lot about this book that I enjoyed, it was an interesting take on events in the war from more the viewpoint of someone growing up/living in England, and also interesting later on to get a taste of living in Ceylon, but I found the characters a bit flat, and sometimes the plot/character

intersections seemed a bit thin to me. Overall a pleasant read, though quite slow paced.

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LibraryThing member glade1

Delightful book. I felt as if I were living in Pilcher's world. The descriptions and detail were marvelous. I loved the characters. There were not any true villains (except Fawcett) and I particularly loved how honest and open the characters were. They were all people I'd like to know. Just a great

escape all around.

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LibraryThing member bookworm12

This thick novel stretches from 1935-45 and is set on the beautiful shores of Cornwall. It was a lovely read, one filled with unforgettable characters and setting that I got lost in. Judith’s parents and young sister Jess head to Singapore for work while she stays in England with her aunt. She

becomes close with the Carey-Lewis family and their glamorous lifestyle at their home, Nancherrow. It reminded me a bit of Brideshead Revisited in that way.

I felt like Judith, Loveday, Aunt Biddy, Edward, Gus, Jeremy, etc. were all real people. They were flawed, kind, selfish, naïve, and all of the things real people are. Pilcher can paint a picture of grief or innocence without making it dramatic. It felt like a glimpse into that world as it truly was during that tumultuous period. There's one section with a creepy old man that makes your skin crawl, another with a beautiful party dress that just radiates first love and all the hormones that go with it.

SPOILER**
I loved that despite it feeling like Judith had no one at times, (her aunt dies in a car wreck and her family is in Asia), she is still surrounded by people who care. Her Aunt Biddy and Uncle treat her like their own child. The Carey-Lewis family gives her a room of her own, the headmistress at the school takes her under her wing, and even their maid Mary looks out for Judith.

I'll continue to read more books from this author and I can't believe I've only just discovered her this year!

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LibraryThing member BoundTogetherForGood

This is the third book by Rosamunde Pilcher that I've read, and I'm a big fan. This story revolves around WWII. It begins with a young English schoolgirl who spent her early users in India, but who is back in England. The story, begins as her mother and sister are about to rejoin her father

overseas.

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LibraryThing member pdebolt

In this book, Rosamunde Pilcher immerses her readers in the English countryside in the years leading up to WWII and then throughout the war. It begins with a 14-year-old, Judith Dunham, who is preparing to live at a boarding school while her mother and sister join her father in Singapore where he

has received a work assignment. She meets a lifelong friend, Loveday, in boarding school whose wealthy family treats her as a surrogate daughter during holidays. Their extravagant lifestyle far exceeds anything Judith has ever known. This is a very long book with descriptions of England and relationships that are both lovely and haunting.

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