The charity currently supported by our local Sainsbury's in Harrogate is the Follifoot Riding for the Disabled scheme. I chose this novel from the table of second-hand books on offer in the entrance yesterday, made my donation and brought it home. Unfortunately it looks a bit battered, as though it's been around the block a few times, but it should hold together for at least one more read :-) While her novels are rather more romantic and lightweight than much of my reading, I find Rosamunde Pilcher's characters to be pleasant company on holiday or in times of illness! One of the attractions is that her stories are often set in beautiful Cornwall or beautiful Scotland, parts of the country I love to be reminded of!

Amazon Editorial Review: "Born in Colombo, Judith Dunbar spends her teenage years at boarding school, while her beloved mother and younger sister live abroad with her father. When her new friend Loveday Carey-Lewis invites Judith home for the weekend to Nancherrow, the Carey-Lewises' beautiful estate on the Cornish coast, it is love at first sight. She falls in love too with the generous Carey-Lewises themselves. With their generosity and kindness, Judith grows from naive girl to confident young woman, basking in the warm affection of a surrogate family whose flame burns brightly. But it is a flame soon to be extinguished in the gathering storm of war. And Judith herself has far to travel before at last ...coming home."

I always thought I knew what to expect from Rosamunder Pilcher's novels: a gentle love story in beautiful surroundings with genteel middle class characters living happily ever after .... so I was surprised, and pleasantly so, to find some darker themes in this one where much of the action takes place during the second world war. Plus, at just over a thousand pages, it's rather longer than most!
One memorable paragraph made me smile! I've always found it amusing that she marries her young heroines off to older men - and on p1014 one of the characters explains why:
'Did you know that the exactly right age for people to get married is for the wife to be half the man's age plus seven?'
So that explains it then - and my thirtysomething year old marriage to a younger man is obviously quite wrong!

While visiting relatives in Birmingham, I plan to take this book to a Sunday afternoon mini-Meet Up in this delightful cafe. If it's not claimed during tea, it'll be left with the other books on the OBCZ (Official BookCrossing Zones) shelves!
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28.11.10: This didn't make it to the Meet Up but went home to Plymouth with my sister-in-law at the end of a fun family gathering in the Midlands!