Rosamunde Pilcher's novel, despite its chilly setting, will warm the hearts of her growing army of loyal fans. Winter Solstice has all the familiar trademarks of a Pilcher saga, spun in her inimitable, homey, beguiling style. The story is told, chapter by chapter, from the perspectives of an eclectic array of characters. Former actress Elfrida--not very good by her own admission--leaves London for a geriatric bolthole in the country where she meets retired schoolmaster and organist, Oscar. Meanwhile, Carrie (Elfrida's second cousin), returns to London from Austria where she had a brilliant career in the tourist industry, only to find her niece, 14-year-old Lucy, sadly neglected by her selfish mother and equally spoiled grandmother. Finally, handsome Sam is recalled from New York by his company chairman to revive an ailing Scottish textile mill.

As one character after another must learn to live with their losses, they find themselves collectively spirited northwards, from Sussex to Scotland, by way of Cornwall. And, as events unfurl, slowly, surely, but inevitably, those in need find solace in unexpected places. While her characterizations are generally carefully crafted and entirely rounded, Pilcher's greatest strengths lie in her natural, easy narratives of everyday life and her thoroughly researched and captivating descriptions of scenery and surroundings. --Carey Green


From Publishers Weekly
The author of The Shell Seekers has penned another romance sure to give fans the warm fuzzies, even though it's set in the north of Scotland in winter. Colorful Elfrida Phipps, 60-ish and single, has retired from a lifetime on the stage to a country retreat in Hampshire, England. There, she is befriended by Oscar and Gloria Blundell and their 12-year-old daughter, Francesca. Oscar, an organist, is somewhat older than his wife and the Blundells live in Gloria's family house. When Gloria and Francesca die in an automobile accident, Gloria's sons from a previous marriage inform Oscar that they are selling the property and he must leave. Elfrida persuades the grief-stricken, penniless Oscar to return to his childhood haunt, Corrydale, in Creagan, Scotland. His grandmother's grand estate is now a hotel, but the former estate manager's house is vacant and still belongs to the family. With few ties herself, Elfrida moves with Oscar to Creagan, where he plans to escape the upcoming Christmas festivities and the sad memories they will arouse. A distant relative of Elfrida's is also looking for a quiet place to spend the holidays. Beautiful, stylish 30-year-old Carrie Sutton is escaping a painful love affair. She has rescued her 14-year-old niece, Lucy, from Lucy's neglectful mother and grandmother, and the two seek asylum with Elfrida and Oscar. When handsome, successful, separated Sam Howard knocks on their homey door in a snowstorm, there is nothing to be done but invite him to stay, and the five souls from three generations find Christmas isn't so sad, after all. As her devoted readers have learned to expect, Pilcher's fond descriptions of domestic detail and her atmospheric evocation of the Scottish landscape add substance to a predictable but heartwarming plot. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection; BOMC alternate; Reader's Digest Select Edition; audio rights to Random House. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In her new novel, Pilcher (The Shell Seekers) takes us to northern Scotland, where five vaguely connected people find themselves together at Christmas in a large Victorian house. They plan to "go pagan and celebrate the Winter Solstice with a lamb chop" but instead create a proper Christmas and soon come as close to one another as they are to the families from which they have been disenfranchised by death and cruel abandonment. Elfrida, a lonely retired actress, befriends Oscar, who is barely surviving the grief of the deaths of his wife and daughter in a car crash. Carrie, bereft after an aborted love affair, takes over the holiday care of her 14-year-old niece, Lucy, who is unwanted by her mother, grandmother, and indifferent father. Sam, in town to take charge of the old woolen mill, is reeling because his wife left him for another man. What lifts this saga above melodrama is the author's skill at creating believable, multifaceted characters with rich inner lives who sustain one another with good sense and gentle humor. Highly recommended.-DMolly Gorman, San Marino, CA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
The enduringly popular Pilcher (Coming Home, 1995, etc.) holds fast to a theme that has all but disappeared from American fiction: the healing comforts of domesticity and companionship. As winter sets in, an old estate in rural Scotland becomes a temporary home to an unlikely assemblage: Elfrida Phipps, a gently eccentric former actress; her friend Oscar Blundell, a dedicated musician and recent widower; Elfrida's distant relation, Carrie Sutton, an independent young woman recovering from the heartbreak of a failed love affair with a married man; teenaged Lucy, Carrie's quiet niece, who yearns to escape from her grandmother's London flat; and Sam Howard, a handsome textile-company executive whose American wife has just left him. As always, Pilcher is a sensible fairy godmother, bestowing happy endings upon the worthy and heartsick, while keeping the less agreeable characters on the other side of the Atlantic, where they evidently belong. The damp charms of the Scottish countryside are tenderly described; and the author's remarkably evocative sense of place and watercolorist's eye for muted detail help distract from the usual contrivances of a Pilcher plot (the unexpected legacy, the valuable heirloom sold to make a new beginning, etc.). In this little realm, this England, the men are sincere and the tweeds handwoven. Tea? (Literary Guild main selection/Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection) -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


People
"With its tender prose and evocative descriptions of the bitter but beautiful Scottish countryside, Solstice becomes an occasion to celebrate as well."


Book Description
In Winter Solstice Rosamunde Pilcher brings her readers into the lives of five very different people....

Elfrida Phipps, once of London's stage, moved to the English village of Dibton in hopes of making a new life for herself. Gradually she settled into the comfortable familiarity of village life -- shopkeepers knowing her tastes, neighbors calling her by name -- still she finds herself lonely.

Oscar Blundell gave up his life as a musician in order to marry Gloria. They have a beautiful daughter, Francesca, and it is only because of their little girl that Oscar views his sacrificed career as worthwhile.

Carrie returns from Australia at the end of an ill-fated affair with a married man to find her mother and aunt sharing a home and squabbling endlessly. With Christmas approaching, Carrie agrees to look after her aunt's awkward and quiet teenage daughter, Lucy, so that her mother might enjoy a romantic fling in America.

Sam Howard is trying to pull his life back together after his wife has left him for another. He is without home and without roots, all he has is his job. Business takes him to northern Scotland, where he falls in love with the lush, craggy landscape and set his sights on a house.

It is the strange rippling effects of a tragedy that will bring these five characters together in a large, neglected estate house near the Scottish fishing town of Creagan.

It is in this house, on the shortest day of the year, that the lives of five people will come together and be forever changed. Rosamunde Pilcher's long-awaited return to the page will warm the hearts of readers both old and new. Winter Solstice is a novel of love, loyalty and rebirth.



From the Publisher
10 1.5-hour cassettes

FROM OUR EDITORS

Elfrida Phipps's untroubled life in a Hampshire village is cut to shreds when members of her neighbor's family die in a car crash, but, in a way this tragedy redeems her life. The warmth of this English domestic novel is reinforced by its closely delineated characters. Even Horace, the faithful dog, comes alive for us.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The December solstice is a turning point. For some, it represents a time of darkness, the shortest day of the year. But for others, this event-just a few days before Christmas-is about hope, renewal and rebirth. In a story both deceptively simple and effortlessly complex, Rosamunde Pilcher brings together five very different people, ranging in age from mid-sixties to teenagers, each of whom must confront very different challenges or losses.

When Efrida Phipps abandons London for a quaint country village, she settles in quickly. She has a tiny cottage, her faithful dog, Horace, and the friendship of good neighbors, Oscar, Gloria and their little girl. Perhaps, at last, she can exorcise the pain of the past and find peace.

But it is not to be.

Tragedy upsets Elfrida's newfound tranquility and she takes refuge in a rambling house in the North of Scotland called Corrydale. Almost like a magnet, Corrydale attracts various waifs and strays, each of them escaping difficult personal pasts. As the holiday approach and the weather turns foul, it seems a perfect recipe for disaster.

But somehow the group proves to be greater than the sun of its ill-suited parts, and as the solstice passes and Christmas approaches, the healing power of love on even the most troubled human spirit begins to work its magic.
Elfrida Phipps, once of London's stage, moved to the English village of Dibton in hopes of making a new life for herself. Gradually, she settled into the comfortable familiarity of village life—shopkeepers knowing her tastes, neighbors calling her name—still she finds herself lonely.

FROM THE CRITICS

USA Today

...a comforting book in which life is sweet and survival is the means to a happy ending. Readers have waited five years for a new Pilcher book, and they may find so much enjoyment in Winter Solstice that they'll want to revisit some of her other books...

Publishers Weekly

The author of The Shell Seekers has penned another romance sure to give fans the warm fuzzies, even though it's set in the north of Scotland in winter. Colorful Elfrida Phipps, 60-ish and single, has retired from a lifetime on the stage to a country retreat in Hampshire, England. There, she is befriended by Oscar and Gloria Blundell and their 12-year-old daughter, Francesca. Oscar, an organist, is somewhat older than his wife and the Blundells live in Gloria's family house. When Gloria and Francesca die in an automobile accident, Gloria's sons from a previous marriage inform Oscar that they are selling the property and he must leave. Elfrida persuades the grief-stricken, penniless Oscar to return to his childhood haunt, Corrydale, in Creagan, Scotland. His grandmother's grand estate is now a hotel, but the former estate manager's house is vacant and still belongs to the family. With few ties herself, Elfrida moves with Oscar to Creagan, where he plans to escape the upcoming Christmas festivities and the sad memories they will arouse. A distant relative of Elfrida's is also looking for a quiet place to spend the holidays. Beautiful, stylish 30-year-old Carrie Sutton is escaping a painful love affair. She has rescued her 14-year-old niece, Lucy, from Lucy's neglectful mother and grandmother, and the two seek asylum with Elfrida and Oscar. When handsome, successful, separated Sam Howard knocks on their homey door in a snowstorm, there is nothing to be done but invite him to stay, and the five souls from three generations find Christmas isn't so sad, after all. As her devoted readers have learned to expect, Pilcher's fond descriptions of domestic detail and her atmospheric evocation of the Scottish landscape add substance to a predictable but heartwarming plot. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection; BOMC alternate; Reader's Digest Select Edition; audio rights to Random House. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

In her new novel, Pilcher (The Shell Seekers) takes us to northern Scotland, where five vaguely connected people find themselves together at Christmas in a large Victorian house. They plan to "go pagan and celebrate the Winter Solstice with a lamb chop" but instead create a proper Christmas and soon come as close to one another as they are to the families from which they have been disenfranchised by death and cruel abandonment. Elfrida, a lonely retired actress, befriends Oscar, who is barely surviving the grief of the deaths of his wife and daughter in a car crash. Carrie, bereft after an aborted love affair, takes over the holiday care of her 14-year-old niece, Lucy, who is unwanted by her mother, grandmother, and indifferent father. Sam, in town to take charge of the old woolen mill, is reeling because his wife left him for another man. What lifts this saga above melodrama is the author's skill at creating believable, multifaceted characters with rich inner lives who sustain one another with good sense and gentle humor. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/00; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections.]--Molly Gorman, San Marino, CA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Patty Engelmann - Booklist

Pitcher has crafted a charming and thoughtful book rich in engaging characters that make the ordinary seem extraordinary and warms the heart like a good cup of tea.

Kirkus Reviews

The enduringly popular Pilcher (Coming Home, 1995, etc.) holds fast to a theme that has all but disappeared from American fiction: the healing comforts of domesticity and companionship. As winter sets in, an old estate in rural Scotland becomes a temporary home to an unlikely assemblage: Elfrida Phipps, a gently eccentric former actress; her friend Oscar Blundell, a dedicated musician and recent widower; Elfrida's distant relation, Carrie Sutton, an independent young woman recovering from the heartbreak of a failed love affair with a married man; teenaged Lucy, Carrie's quiet niece, who yearns to escape from her grandmother's London flat; and Sam Howard, a handsome textile-company executive whose American wife has just left him. As always, Pilcher is a sensible fairy godmother, bestowing happy endings upon the worthy and heartsick, while keeping the less agreeable characters on the other side of the Atlantic, where they evidently belong. The damp charms of the Scottish countryside are tenderly described; and the author's remarkably evocative sense of place and watercolorist's eye for muted detail help distract from the usual contrivances of a Pilcher plot (the unexpected legacy, the valuable heirloom sold to make a new beginning, etc.). In this little realm, this England, the men are sincere and the tweeds handwoven. Tea? (Literary Guild main selection/Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection) Literary Guild main selection/Book-of-the-Month alternate selection