A Place Like Home
Short Stories
by: Rosamunde Pilcher
St. Martin's Press

The fifteen short stories in A Place Like Home transported me to places of comfort, solace, romance, and happiness through the words of our beloved Rosamunde Pilcher. I loved each story, as all offered glimpses into a short span of time in the lives of interesting people in beautiful places such as England, Scotland, and the Mediterranean. Only Pilcher can so beautifully capture the intricacies of moments, events, scenery, landscapes, people, and memories in such subtle yet detailed descriptions. Her writing is both simple and complex, flowing like a gentle river that sweeps you in to experience the full range of emotions, thoughts, and actions of each character.
My personal favorite story was A Smile For the Bride, which was originally published in Good Housekeeping Magazine. Pilcher writes about the events on the wedding day of Amelia and David, leading up to their marriage in an ancient village church. Amelia takes a morning bicycle ride through the village and up a moor, where she meets an endearing elderly man with bright blue eyes. Pilcher's descriptions of this young couple's wedding day, with background on family relationships, are just gorgeous in this tale that will stay in my heart.
It is joyful to lovers of the late Rosamunde Pilcher's books to be able to read this compilation of stories, and be swept away once more to magical moments in time and place through the beauty of her writing.
Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for the advance reader's copy and the opportunity to provide my unbiased review of A Place Like Home.
#APlaceLikeHome #NetGalley

Gentle Stories of Love and Romance

I have been a fan of Rosamunde Pilcher since I was a teen. Her books were always engaging with beautiful settings and attractive characters. This collection of fifteen short stories is the same. However, the stories are based in a different era and may not resonate with modern readers.

The women in the stories are engaged in some form of relationship or are single and looking for a relationship. Different types of love are described from the wife who tries to rekindle the romance in her marriage to a young woman realizing she’s along and then finding romance. The stories primarily involve a romantic couple. This works well for the era in which they are set. Whether right of wrong, at that time women were encouraged to look for a relationship with a man. Marriage was a goal and being single was often viewed as failure.

If you have read Roemunde Pilcher, before these stories are a wonderful find. The settings, as usual in her work, are breathtaking. You want to drop everything and go there. However, the characters, as I pointed out, are somewhat dated. Still, you can love the stories for a glimpse of a different time.

I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

Rosamunde Pilcher has been my go to comfort novelist since I was a teenager. When I am sick, tired, depressed, or just need comfort, Rosamunde Pilcher books are my version of comfort. I was thrilled when I saw this book of short stories that I had not previously read. Then there was the wonderful foreward by Lucinda Riley, who sadly passed away last month way before her time,

The book was a collection of short stories all with Rosamunde’s touch, lovely places, gentle stories., no angst or drama. These stories are like a comfortable sofa, a cup of tea and a lovely Spring afternoon all in one. I really missed these type of stories and this was a wonderful balm after the not so fun last couple of years.

If you have never read Rosamunde Pilcher this is a great introduction to her wonderful world, if you are a seasoned Rosamunde Pilcher reader, you will appreciate the chace to revisit the stories that make the world a little bit brighter and better.

Thanks to Netgalley, St.Martin’s Press and Rosamunde Pilcher for the chance to read and review these stories.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of A Place Like Home by Rosamunde Pilcher.

I was excited to get my hands on this because I was such a fan of The Shell Seekers, the only other book I read by her.

This is a series of short stories, all dipped in beautiful backdrops and delightful romance. None of them long, all of them heartwarming. I highly recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy. I was not compensated for my review.opinion. First off, this book is by my favorite author. I’ve read everything I could get my hands on, even database copies from ancient magazine publications. There are 2 in this collection that I have read before due to my own research in finding her work online that wasn’t published in a short story collection. Reading these stories was perfect. They’re classic Rosamunde, and yes, being as they were written 30+ years ago, they do reflect the culture and timing, but that’s easy to overlook and really wasn’t an issue, however new readers may wonder. In some of these stories, it was easy to spot what would happen early on, but again, they were written for limited magazine space and not necessarily development over the course of a book. I consider this a welcome addition to my RP collection. The stories were a great companion dying busy days because I could pick up and read them quickly. Her writing style is a comfort.

A PLACE LIKE HOME by Rosamunde Pilcher (1924 – 2019) is a newly published collection of stand-alone short stories from this prolific writer whose novels, including The Shell Seekers, have sold over 60 million copies worldwide. I have been reading works by Rosamunde Pilcher (and Maeve Binchy) for decades, so it was a wonderful gift to have a new collection of her gentle romance stories. Most take place in England and many were written in the 1970s and 1980s. Examples include Someone to Trust about overcoming heartache and learning to be vulnerable again or Anniversary with its theme of marriage and consistency (and a surprising twist), plus several (Skelmerton , Ghosts of the Past, and Jonathan) in which a long ago love is rekindled. Lucinda Riley, who wrote the introduction, summarizes A PLACE LIKE HOME so well: "To those of you who already know and love Rosamunde's writing, these short stories will be a welcome pleasure, and, for those readers that don't, they are a wonderful introduction to her talent as a storyteller and the fictional worlds she so effortlessly brought to life." This collection received a starred review from Kirkus.

Until A PLACE LIKE HOME, I didn't know Rosamunde Pilcher wrote short stories. Now I know that her short stories are the ultimate in tight, well-developed, and poetic, exploring what it is to be in love, in grief, and in finding your own way in the world. I'd be hard-pressed to declare any one story my favorite; each story is its own complete, glorious self. I was delighted with the empathy, the compassion, and the lyrical prose that I've come to expect from Pilcher's longer works. The stories opened my eyes, expanded my heart, and deepened my understanding of our human strengths and frailties, deft and memorable. I received a free advance reader copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

Title: A Place Like Home: Short Stories
Author: Rosamunde Pilcher
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: Five
Review:
"A Place Like Home Short Stories" by Rosamunde Pilcher

My Opinion:

Get ready for some good reading... This author gives us fifteen short stories that will keep your interest reading to the very end.

Here they are...
1. Someone to Trust...Rachel & William
2. Anniversary...Janey and David
3. Skelmerton...Caroline, William [Tiger] & Leo Walton,
4. A Place Like Home...Joanna & Bob
5. Ghost of the Past... Josephine & Douglas, Humphrey, Helena &...
6. Jonathan...
7. The Key...Ruth & Gavin
8. A Fork in the Road...Alistair
9. A Stone Boy [The Winds of Chance] Liz & John
10. A Touch of Magic... Josh & Elizabeth
11. A Smile for the Bride...Amelia & David
12. Magic Might Happen...Victoria & John
13. Through the Eyes of Love...Julia & Harry
14. Our Holiday...Kate & Andrew
15. Harbour of Love...Julia & Ivan

I recommend 'A Place Like Home' to you as a good read if you like romances. Of these fifteen stories...there will be one just for you.

I want to Thank St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this advance copy of this delightful read of short stories.

What a gift to the world that these stories by Rosamunde Pilcher were discovered after her death. Each story is a little gem with wonderful characters and beautiful surroundings. The stories feature warm and simple plots, love at first sight, unexpected coincidences, and happy endings. I had a smile on my face the entire time I was reading this book. My only regret is that the book had to end.

I enjoyed these easily readable stories, especially their location in England's countryside, and while I found them cozy and enjoyable, after a few they felt fairly repetitive and hard to differentiate. I'm glad I read it, I just wasn't left as enamored as I was when I began.

Rosamunde Pilcher has been my comfort read for decades, and after her death a few years ago, I was sure I’d only be able to reread her past books, so I was thrilled to discover this collection of short stories. They feature everything readers expect from Rosamunde Pilcher—kind, affectionate characters; gorgeous settings; and quiet love affairs. Her characters fall in love in the most i dramatic ways, with no heaving bosoms or throbbing manhoods, just an acknowledgment of mutual affection.

You could read Rosamunde Pilcher’s romances aloud to your grandmother without blushing, but that doesn’t mean they’re stodgy. For me, a Rosamunde Pilcher story *is* a place like home. #APlaceLikeHome #NetGalley

I'm not sure I can really write a fair review on this book. I love Rosamunde Pilcher. I read The Shell Seekers so many times that I had two paperbacks literally fall apart in my hands. I adore her previous two short story collections and read them when I need serious comfort.

These short stories were dated, trite and predictable. Most of her heroines are too thin with lots of straight hair, good bone structure and can look either beautiful or very plain depending on various factors. However, Pilcher's writing is magic. Her settings come alive and instantly pull me into the book. I love her characters and somehow she gives a different face to all the straight haired plain/dazzling girls she writes. It's essentially the book equivalent of a hot cup of tea, a warm blanket, and piece of very good shortbread on a very rainy day.

I think Flowers in the Rain or The Blue Bedroom are both stronger short story collections but to have this book be published several years after Pilcher's death is such a special gift and this is a book I will revisit.

4.5/5⭐️

I was thrilled to discover this new anthology of short stories recently discovered and written by one of my favorite authors. It felt like coming home as I read them.

Pilcher writes with a descriptive, and deceptively simple quality that almost feels like poetry to me. Each story (there are 15) made me wish for a full-length novel. Yes, she writes romance but not just love stories…her characters are so fully developed, her settings so fully imagined that the romance sometimes can feel like an afterthought.

My favorites here were A Place Like Home and Skelmerton, but I loved them all.

My sincere thanks to #NetGalley and #StMartinsPress for providing me the free early arc for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

Love with a poignant edge💘

4-4.5🌟 stars
Well-written short stories, each giving an unvarnished look at the different aspects of love. Pilcher is a virtuouso at setting a scene and an emotional tone with a brevity of words. There's a variety of situations here, with the plots often focusing on broken relationships or a lonely life leading to a crossroads and freeing the lead female character to finding a happier future with a more perfect romantic fit.

I am a big fan of literature set in the United Kingdom, and particularly Scotland; the story A Place Like Home which takes a recuperating, solitary Englishwoman to a welcoming farm family in Scotland was probably my favorite but all of the stories were UK-set, sweet reads with a gentle tenure I really enjoyed.

It's a solid collection that should be a welcome addition for those already fans of Pilcher's work and a good introduction to acquaint new readers to the style of her work.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

A Place Like Home is full of wonderful short stories from a long loved author. I am not usually a short story fan but found these stories the perfect length to read at bedtime. I really wanted some of the stories to be be developed into full length novels. Unfortunately, Rosamunde Pilcher is no longer with us so I will have to imagine the rest of the story.

Such a fan of Rosamunde Pilcher and it was a delight to have a chance to read this short stories. Each one will feel your heart with memories of all the great novels she wrote.

Rosamunde Pilcher is officially one of my favorite authors and so it was DELIGHTFUL to read a "new" book of short stories by her. Each story is a pitch perfect Pilcher--feels warm and cozy and perfect as summer reading. I will never tire of her ways of describing setting and food. My only wish is that she was still with us so she could continue to provide us with such gorgeous prose. Highly, highly recommend.

Readers, have you read this author’s most beloved book, The Shell Seekers? If not, I recommend it for its’ characters, settings and stories. It tells the story of an artist’s daughter both in the present and during WWII. I confess to having read this book more than once. I also liked Winter Solstice and September. September has some characters from The Shell Seekers in it.

As a reader of Pilcher’s novels, I was delighted to receive an ARC of this collection of short stories. There are fifteen stories in all and they are introduced by another favorite author of mine, Lucinda Riley. A few of the stories included are Anniversary; Jonathan; A Touch of Magic, and of, course, A Place Like Home.

Rosamunde Pilcher (sadly, no longer alive) was an author who knew what kinds of stories her readers wanted and she delivered them. These are quiet, good reads just perfect for when a reader has a bit of time and is looking for a “nice” read. I recommend the collection.

Those who already are familiar with RP will be glad to have this gift of stories. New readers may be encouraged to read her longer novels.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title. All opinions are my own.

Just what I needed to fill in a few spaces during my busy summer. A Place Like Home, by Rosamunde Pilcher is a collection of feel-good stories that are bound behind a beautiful cover.  I love that these are easily read in short amounts of time and have read a few here and there when I didn't want to delve into a new book or just wanted to read someting quick.  Each story stands alone, but is similar in that "feeling"  you are left with.  The only negative is that you will be left wanting more! I received an ARC ebook for review, but will purchase a copy to have on hand and to share. Now, to find more of Pilcher's books...

It’s nice to see a new set of stories from Rosamunde Pilcher but I could tell that she is no longer with us for sure. Some of the stories felt incomplete & ended abruptly. I do like her style & subject matters. If you’re a fan of hers, I suggest getting this set of short stories.

Thanks you to NetGalley & the publisher for advanced copy in exchange for my honest review