Robin PilcherCríticas

Family Saga

Son of Rosamonde. Set in England and Scotland. Dot com?r finds himself in Scotland doing something he loves and in turn finds how to love his kids and realize his marriage is over. A good read.

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This was the debut novel for Robin Pilcher, son of the better-known writer Rosamunde Pilcher.

David, a businessman who has been grieving and depressed, flies to America for an important meeting. Then he realises he has to start moving on for the sake of his children in Scotland...

Clever plotting as a business thread alternates with David's personal story. While some of the scenes relating to the business went a little over my head, it didn’t matter. David, who is an extremely likeable person, discovers that he can make a difference in the lives of some lonely people. The bulk of the story takes place over about a month, and the pace works well.

The writing is excellent, particularly the characterisation; the author evidently inherited his mother's gift in that respect. There's believable dialogue and some strong emotion, with one particularly moving scene, towards the end. The romance, inevitable from fairly early on, is low-key, only coming to resolution in the final chapter.

I enjoyed this very much both on first reading, on re-reading nearly sixteen years later, and again another five years after that. Highly recommended.

Latest review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2022/09/an-ocean-apart-by-robin-pilcher.htm...

A nice light read. Liked that it was a story about love without all the sexual scenes, business ethics without being boring. Amazed at how all around talented David was to the point that it became unbelievable. Enjoyed the housekeeper with her humor as well as compassion. Glad to see his comments to Jennifer to not give up on her marriage immediately.

awful

Dan had a perfect life with his wife and family and a high-powered job in the city when he is made redundant and for the first time in his life doesn't know what to do. His wife is too busy with her job which includes foreign travel to notice how hard it is for him. His mother gives him a magazine for the recipe and he reads and article which will change everything.

I enjoyed this book which is a quick light read and the scenes in Scotland are written well giving you the feeling that you are really there. I also loved the character of Battersea Gran.

The ending however was very abrupt and it really needs a sequel.

Liz is a farmer who lives near St Andrews in Scotland. An American firm want to build a golf course on her land. Not the normal setting for a novel, but it's a great book of endings and beginnings, lovely characters, and very believable.

A little confusing in the early chapters as characters are introduced in quick succession, including an unexpected leap to Australia. But the storylines soon weave together in expert fashion.

I found a tad too much description about places, farming methods and golf courses, but it was easy to skim. It's the characters who matter, and they are three-dimensional and sympathetic. All in all, I enjoyed this very much. Re-read after fifteen years, by which time I had entirely forgotten the plot resolutions; when I re-read again just five years afterwards, I had forgotten it again.

Definitely recommended.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2022/11/starting-over-by-robin-pilcher.html½

This is Robin Pilcher's third novel. I thoroughly enjoyed his first two; he's Rosamunde Pilcher's son, and while his writing is sometimes cruder than hers, and the endings tend to be left rather open, I still find the style eminently readable and his characters likeable. Perhaps it's typical of a male author that the men seem mostly real and the women rather caricatured.

It's the story of a marriage with problems that aren't likely to be resolved. I didn't like it as much as the others to start with, partly because there were no female characters I could empathise with and partly because there seemed to be a lot of digs (at the church, for instance) and assumptions (eg that private schools are better than state ones) that weren't explored. There was also a fair amount of business talk in the middle of the book, which I skimmed.

But still, I got drawn into the main character's life and those of people he met in the second half of the book, and by the last few chapters could hardly put it down. Enjoyed again 18 years after first reading, but found the ending rather unsatisfactory.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-risk-worth-taking-by-robin-pilche...

I did enjoy this book. It's about Claire, a young woman who has an unhappy - and mystifying - end to a teenage crush on Jonas, the boy next door, as the story opens. We then flash back to her childhood, when her widowed mother first meets her stepfather Leo.

The structure is slightly confusing - each chapter has a heading giving the month and year, which vary from 1980 - when Claire is ten - to 2006 when she's a young wife, helping her American husband run a restaurant. This didn't always flow as well as I would have liked, although the flashbacks helped to fill in the story in a way that gradually gave a good picture of Claire's life.

Leo is a delightful character, and I very much enjoyed his friendship with Claire and her mother. However he has two children, a little older than Claire, who are most unpleasant types; I found them rather too nasty, not just as jealous, selfish children (not wishing their father to re-marry at all) but as grasping, bitter adults. It was hard to believe that anyone could be quite so vicious.

The writing is good, most of the people well-rounded and interesting, and the plot quite exciting; I was eagerly awaiting the resolution of the mystery posed in the first chapter, and pleased with a satisfying resolution. All in all, an excellent book.

Latest full review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/05/a-matter-of-trust-by-robin-pilcher....

A bit slow to start with, and rather a lot of characters... however they all converge in the Edinburgh Fringe, and once the story gets going, it's very much a page-turner.

A brilliant young French violinist, an elderly film maker, a comedienne from Yorkshire and a neglected teenager who's an expert car thief are four of the main characters in this memorable and sometimes moving book.

Definitely recommended.

Latest longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2023/03/starburst-by-robin-pilcher.html

Dan Porter lives in suburban London with his wife and three children. As a two-income family, Dan and his wife Rebecca were basically living in the dream world they expected to create for themselves. But Dan lost his job months ago and now the initial welcome felt by a wife and children in having a stay-at-home husband and father while he looked for work has worn off. As Dan begins to sort through his own feelings of guilt in not finding employment he also begins to question what type of work he really wants to pursue. Rebecca’s feelings change as her resentment builds as the responsibility of being the sole breadwinner begins to overpower any other emotions. As the children have changes in their lives, Dan's encouragement to them is over-shadowed by the change they see in his confidence and they begin to see his part in their lives as intrusion.

This story is not an action-packed, suspenseful thriller. But it is a page-turning novel as an intimate portrayal of the changes in a family as the dynamics of a two-income family that has always had a level of financial security changes to multiple unknowns. The initial setting of London could be any major city around the world. However, as the job opportunity for Dan changes there could only be one location that could be so lovingly portrayed and so unique to the outcome of the story as in the corner of the world in Scotland portrayed by Robin Pilcher.

It is a story about a family "in crisis" that is thoughtfully written with care to express all of the human emotions of family dynamics (i.e. husband/wife, wife/husband, parent/child, mother/children, father/children, husband/son, husband/mother, wife/mother-in-law). The story also portrays how easily a man and a woman in the same relationship and having the same daily experiences can and sometimes do view things so very differently. It is a story of parental love, the nurturing love between parent and child and from child to parent. It is also a story of resilience and the daily choices that each individual faces on their life journey.

This was a good book but could have been better by not making me jump around from past to present. I felt like each time I went back to continue it I had to review where I was and which time period I should be imagining. :(

An Ocean Apart by Robin Pilchner
Loved this book after I found out the author has a relative that is also an author.
This one is about a man who has lost his wife and he helps run a whiskey business with his father. He still has 3 kids and his mother looks after them as he wraps his head around his loss.
The kids think it is also a good idea for him to go to the states to get his mind back on track. Business things he finds are not going as planned and he uncovers many inconsistencies.
He has no mind for the business so hires himself out as a gardener but is so much more to the family. They treasure him being there and when he is summoned home to tend to the family business due to his father's medical problem he
knows he must make his decisions. The children were able to be with him for a short time as he introduced them to NY long island during the summer.
Loved learning so much more about gardening and all the travel involved, such details.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).

Added above the title are the words, "rediscover the power of family, friends, and love...". Robin Pilcher shares his story with rich descriptions of his beloved Scotland and a warmth and thoughtfulness to each character he introduces into the storyline. The characters come alive to the extent that I wish I could go and spend some time with them. I would especially love to have some girl talk with Liz and Annabelle. For someone that loves golf, they might be thrilled to spend some time with Roberta or Alex.
For anyone that has been through the heartache of a broken heart whether through a cheating partner, a separation, divorce, or loss of a loved one in death, this is a story that could suggest stepping away from the close-up view of one’s own heartache perhaps with a small journey or perhaps with empathy as a listener about another’s world. Hopefully those first steps might encourage one’s own heart or inspire one’s own thoughts to consider forgiveness or at the least an understanding be their bridge to the next steps of their life journey where strength, love, courage and the hope of new days and new dreams begin.

The story of a man looking to find more than he had. Dan lost his money and his job as a broker in the dot.com collapse. With his wife becoming increasingly impatient and remote, his daughters miserable at being removed from their school, and his son interested in who-knows-what, well, it's time to rethink.

Dan's solution is to remove himself from London and check out a company in Scotland. The result is a new life for himself and his son, renewed appreciation from his daughters, and friendships.

A nice book.½

I really liked this book because the characters were well developed, the backdrop of the Edinburgh Festival brought the various pieces together and the characters acted and reacted like normal people.

The various characters are all in Edinburgh in August to take part in the Festival in some way or another. Some are performers, some do work related to the Festival or just happen to live in Edinburgh. They all get intertwined while the book plays out the story of their individual lives.

This is the first time I have read this book, but I did listen to it as an audiobook a few years ago. It is a relatively long book and an interesting story. It is above a beach read, but not Jane Austen in the spectrum of fiction. I like the way Pilcher writes: good descriptions, lots of interesting characters, little gratuitious violence.

The story hinges around the Edinburgh Festival, which is, apparently, held in July/August each year. The various characters all have a part in the Festival. There are some characters' stories that are more well developed than others. I thought that about the work Leonard Hartson is doing at the Festival, but think, perhaps, that Leonard is a supporting player in T.K.'s story.

I was impatient with the story until Angelique has her accident. Then I really started to enjoy it. I thought about whether or not [a:Robin Pilcher|44557|Robin Pilcher|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] could have skipped the parts leading up to that event and realized that the background really helped me enjoy the rest of the story.

I hope Pilcher writes a sequel, because I am interested in knowing what happens to the various characters.

I read this while traveling and found it to be well written and enjoyable. It is a good story and reminiscent of [a:Rosamunde Pilcher|20849|Rosamunde Pilcher|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1244293675p2/20849.jpg]'s [b:September|116053|September|Rosamunde Pilcher|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171721016s/116053.jpg|6958004]. One thing that I really liked about this book was the relative timelessness. I kept wondering why they didn't just send an email or call on their mobile phones. When one of the characters pulled out a floppy disk, I had to look at the copyright date. I didn't realize it was written in 1999 until I actually looked at the copyright date.

This is well written and good entertainment.

This book was ok. I liked it because it has elements of [a:Rosamunde Pilcher|20849|Rosamunde Pilcher|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1244293675p2/20849.jpg]'s writing in it. The characters are similar, but the sentences are not as carefully constructed and the descriptions tended to make my mind wander. I liked the story and thought the ending was a good one - not a typical and expected fiction ending.

Nice light reading that is well written and entertaining. Again, I was confused by parts of the ending and wished that Jonas had talked more about how Marcus and Charity suffered financially.

I listened to the audio version of this novel read by John Lee who is a wonderful reader no matter what book he is interpreting, but his accents representing all the various brogues of Great Britain as well as his French inflection really made the story come alive. It is really a "feel good" type of novel with in depth character development, and having been in Edinburgh during "The Fringe" several years ago, it was especially enjoyable.

This is a "what if" book: what if Dan Porter hadn't grown up in a working class neighborhood, what if he decided he wanted to get out and did, what if he then hadn't been a money-making success, what if he then hadn't lost this fantastic job and what if he hadn't come to realize that maybe life isn't really about making money after all. All these "what ifs" lead to a heart-warming tale of kindness, friendship, humor, and a family's dissolving and build-up. This family's relationship to one another is extremely interesting and one would hope that this could somehow be the positive outcome for people in a similar situation. Dan Porter's relationship to his mother is an outstanding example- were all parents so blessed.

I picked this up for 99p a few years ago and just got round to reading it. I was pleasantly suprised to find it was very readable, although quite unlike my normal choices. It focuses on relationships, family and the difficult decisions and choices we make, good or bad. The central character Dan is as likeable as his wife is unpleasant and the Scottish characters, particularly Patrick, are ajoy to read.

Warm, Interesting Tale: This latest from Robin Pilcher is certainly his best; it lacks some of the stiffness and self-consciousness that occasionally marked his earlier works.

Set against the very interesting backdrop of the annual Edinburgh Festival, the plot revolves against several key figures, each of whom in some way is involved with the festivities, either on or off the stage. Having been to Edinburgh during this fabulous time of every type of cultural and folk activity you can imagine, I was fascinated by the behind-the-scenes information, which was woven effortlessly into the story rather than just being presented as specious information.

I found the characters believable and for the most part likeable (there is at least one villain), and the plot lines quick and easy to read. The book held my interest throughout, and I finished it with a smile on my face.

Highly recommended!