by Rosamunde Pilcher

This was the first Rosamunde Pilcher I ever read, and, in my mid-20s at the time, I was hooked. There is a bit of an ick factor for some: there is a 17 year age difference between the 2 leads, and the young lady was only 20 years old. It didn’t bother me a great deal although it did take me a minute to switch gears to George possibly being her father, to her love interest. That possibility was put to rest pretty quickly, however. Selina is a typical Rosamunde Pilcher heroine: young, innocent, underweight, bullied, and needy. But this one did not annoy me as much as the two girls did in the previous two books I re-read. Although a bit hopeless and a bit whiny, she did take charge of her own fate at last and did not do anything super stupid. And she certainly did not suffer in comparison to her hard-drinking chain-smoking rival for George’s affection, Frances. What a piece of work she was!

I loved George, the hero. Think Cary Grant in Father Goose. The last pages where Selina and George acknowledge their love is very charming and very cinematic, somehow. I kept picturing Keira Knightly and George Clooney. **4 stars out of 5**

November 22, 2018