Customer Reviews

Another View (Windsor Selections)

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For a most enjoyable evening, Rosamunde Pilcher's ANOTHER VIEW is highly recommended. The settings provided are so realistic, one never knows whether to pour a stiff scotch, or set out biscuits for tea for refreshment when turning to page one. In ANOTHER VIEW, Pilcher shuttles the reader from Paris, to London, to the quaint, English seaside village of Porthkerris. Like most of Pilcher's work, this is an easy-to-read love story, with two distinct parts. The first tells of a daughter's unconditional quest for her father's love, and the second is a somewhat predictable, but none the less entertaining romance between virtual strangers. If there is any disappointment it is that, unlike other Pilcher novels, this is really a novella ... easily read in one sitting. Whereas the plot takes some interesting twists and turns, the great expanses of description, setting and history, so much a part of Pilcher's earlier novels, is greatly missed. But like ALL Pilcher novels, the ending is as refreshing and satisfying as a cucumber sandwich during afternoon tea.

Emma Litton is a virtual orphan who has made her way in the world with only occasional contacts from Ben, her famous artist father. One of the happiest times of her life was during his 18-month marriage to Hester who had a son named Christo. Emma formed a deep bond with her stepbrother and after many years apart, runs into him in Paris just as she is leaving to return to England and try to become reacquainted with her father.

Emma's story is one of taking a second look at the people you think you know so well. What she discovers about her relationship with her father and brother is very enlightening and helps her resolve her own feelings about the new love that has come into her life.

As always with Rosamunde Pilcher books, a most satisfying read and one that leaves you dreaming of the beach at Cornwall and sitting down to tea with scones and lemond curd.

I've enjoyed all the books by this author. I found this delightful story while browsing the library stacks (sorry Amazon, but libraries save me major money!).

Emma strives to reconnect with her father, whose artist lifestyle provided an unconventional childhood and distant relationship. Emma is so focused on her father and "getting the relationship right", she doesn't see the opportunity for relationships with others. But as she works through this critical relationship she then is able to move on.

The author made you understand why Emma had to resolve the father-daughter relationship before she could open up to other relationships. Charming tale about understanding others and our roles in their lives and their impact in ours.

Emma Litton has been alone all her life. She lost her mother at birth. And the only time she had the full attention of her brilliant artist father was once, when she was six, he painted her portrait. Briefly she had a brother, Christopher whom she called Cristo, while his mother was married to her father. All too soon Cristo was gone too, but never to be forgotten. Then her father, on his way to America, sent her to boarding school in Switzerland, and there she stayed until she was old enough to find a job for herself in Paris. Through all those years Ben Litton visited her a couple of times, briefly each time. He never wrote letters and he did not use the telephone. His only infrequent communications came by way of telegrams. Finally, in Paris, Emma rediscovers Christo, but then she is on her way home to her father, to determine whether she can have any kind of relationship, form any kind of family unit, with him. In London, en route to Cornwall, she meets the man of her dreams, her father's very handsome galley agent. But Emma cannot begin to dream, cannot acknowledge the love she finds with Robert Morrow, until she has learned the truth about her father. When her father leaves her alone again, she turns to Christo. But it seems that he, a young actor with a brilliant future, will treat her with much the same indifference her father has always shown her, willing to abandon her for the advancement of his career.

Emma will finally get another view of her father -- a view through another window into his heart and soul -- and through that view will learn not only the truth about him but about herself as well. But will the truth that sets her free to love come to late for her to win that love?

Another View was written thirty years ago. But with its timeless appeal and story line, it reads as though it might have been written last week -- and will probably read that way after another thirty years. A warm and wonderful book, peopled with the bewitching, irresistible characters Pilcher e! xcels at, it is a brief book that you wish would double in size because you are loathe to have it end so soon.

Rosamunde Pilcher wrote this short and sweet novel in the late 60s, and it foreshadows her later, larger works of brilliant character studies that bely some fairly complicated plots.

This particular story takes place mostly at the Cornish seaside, one of Pilcher's favorite venues. It opens, however, in Paris, where the beautiful, fey, and slightly muddled Emma Litton awaits her plane back to England. Having spent many years in France as a nanny, Emma now yearns for her homeland--and the fulfillment of a desire that has obviously been with her all her life: She wishes to bond with her famous artist father, Ben.

Emma's sudden and unexpected meeting at the airport with her step-brother Cristo, whom she knew during one of Ben's brief marriages, but has not seen in many years, allows us to see her needy and sensitive side, even as others observe only a hip young Sixties mod.

The remainder of the brief book takes place in her father's studio-cum-cottage on the seaside, as Emma settles in as daughter, housekeeper, muse, and, eerily, almost as a wife to her elusive father. Will it work? Can Emma get over her childlike fantasy of being Daddy's Little Girl and get on with her life? Will she notice the worthy young man whose heart she has captured? Or will she lose him too in her fruitless desire to create the family she never had?

Without the deep substance of her later books, nevertheless, this sweet Pilcher offering is well worth reading--especially when narrated by Sian Thomas, who captures the quiet, brooding tone just right.

I recommend this lovely tale to all Pilcher fans.

My wife bought this book because of the author, but set it aside when she saw the 1968 copyright. She had read Winter Soltice and is now reading Shell Seekers, and loves them both. This is my first Rosamunde Pilcher. We're in Germany on an extended visit, and I finished reading (my more manly) Grisham's The Broker, and had nothing else to read. For some reason I expected Another View to be a romance novel, but it was much more. And, the fact that it was written so long ago didn't lessen it at all. The only time-sensitive part was the excessive (in my view) amount of smoking. Everyone smokes in the book. But, of course, many did back in 1968.

As a father of two grown girls, I especially enjoyed the father-daughter struggles. Of course I'm not a famous artist like Ben is in the story, but still, fathers are often taken away from their children by their work. And, often, we have regrets for that lost time.

I thought the plot was well structured for the most part and I wondered if this might have been her first novel. If so, what an exceptional job for a first book.

Rosamunde Pilcher has long been an author who can generate stories that leap off the page with vivid characters who have real struggles and triumphs. "Another View", an early work, is a fast-paced read, but fairly common ground for any reader familiar with other Pilcher novels.

The reader is immediately introduced to Emma Litton, a nineteen-year-old virtual orphan, who has always played second fiddle to her father's career as an artist. Shuttled off to boarding school, then a nanny job in Paris while her father, Ben Litton, travels the world to paint, she is ready to move back home. She longs to know the place she has in her father's life, and moves back to Cornwall, only to be disappointed yet again. It isn't until Emma is willing to do a little character exploration of her own, to know what she wants for her life, to be able to understand the place she has in her father's heart.

"Another View" is a typical Pilcher novel, well-written with believable characters. Yet it is often too predictable and rushes to a happy-ending conclusion within the last few pages. It is a perfect quick holiday read but hardly reaches the grandeur and sustenance of Pilcher's better works, such as "Coming Home", "The Shell Seekers", and "September".

I've read all of her books. Wish she were still alive to write more -- I am so selfish. Love everything she has written and miss her . Son Robin Pilcher is working on carrying on his own talent with new novels and is a storyteller worth reading. Miss Rosamunde, and I am excited about Robin Pilcher's work. thanks for letting me share.

Sorry Mrs. Pilcher but your muse of inspiration left you while you wrote this book, about a girl who couldn't get on with her life but to wait on everyone else. Totally boring, do no waste your money. I just started "under gemini" and so far it has not click in yet, kind of slow but it may change. I will write about it too.

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