Customer Reviews

An Ocean Apart

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

However Robin's book is set at a much-faster pace than his mom's books. It has everything in it, romance, true love, intrigue, despair, hope, humor and happiness. It is a great read ~~ you won't be able to put it down right away! It seems to be a hefty book but it's not. If it starts out slow, don't give up. The best is yet to come.

When I started this book, I had the impression that it was going to be a dark, gloomy book ~~ but that impression changed half way through it. David had just lost his wife Rachel to cancer and unable to cope with anything, he starts working on his family gardens. Sent to America on a marketing job for a few days, David realizes that he couldn't face Scotland without Rachel and applies for a gardening job. Then he becomes involved with a family that he works for.

This novel is a progression of a man's journey through grief only to find hope and love again. It is an emotional book and one that you can't put down easily. You just keep turning the page, promising yourself that this page is going to be it for the night ~~ only to turn the page again. You find yourself rooting for the characters ~~ and by the end of the book, you feel as if the sunshine has come upon you as well as David.

Take it and read it ~~ don't be discouraged by the different writing style ~~ there will never be another Rosamunde Pilcher ~~ but Robin is unique and creative in his own way. His mom should be proud of him.

This book was a joy to read. I found it heartwarming, simple and sweet, and although other readers objected to what they thought was a simplistic and cliched plot, I did not.

The story concerns upper-class Scotsman David Inchelvie, who has lost his beloved wife Rachel to cancer. The untimely death of his life's partner has thrown David into a deep and dangerous depression, and forced his elderly father, Lord Inchelvie, to go back to work at the family's renowned distillery. For David, wallowing in his own grief, has brought his children back to his parents' estate, literally dropped them into his parents' care, and taken to the garden, where he is knee-deep in mud all day long. Yes, of course the mud is a metaphor for David's state of mind, and of course it is obvious. But it works.

Although the estate has a perfectly good gardener, David is only sane when he can dig, weed, plant, and work with his hands, as hard as any laborer. Only when he is thoroughly exhausted can he get through his days. His parents are worried sick, and his children need him, but he cannot pull himself out of the mire, literally or figuratively.

But things at the brewery are in sorry shape, as the unscrupulous general manager, who now has the sharp and heretofore cutting-edge boss's son out of the way, is planning nefarious deeds. Duncan Caple is not worried about the old man, as the Lord is easy to fool. But he wants David far away as he schemes to sell out the family's old and elegant business. Therefore, he sends David to America on a largely phony business pretext, and David, barely able to pull himself together, reluctantly agrees.

America is where David starts to notice the sun again. In a lovely village on Cape Cod, he passes himself off as a day laborer, and gets a job with Jasmine, whose philandering husband is off doing what he does best. David finds a small cottage, a horribly smelly dog, an unpretentious seaside village quite unlike what he is used to in Scotland, and a small boy who needs a father figure. And so the plot winds along to its inevitable conclusion, predictable, but wonderful.

What saves this book from banality is Pilcher's utterly ingenuous style, his obvious sincerity, his total honesty and the fact that he cares for his characters very much. In addition, he is a good writer who keeps the plot moving along with good descriptions, interesting plot twists, and a story that holds one's interest.

Is the son as good as the mother? Probably not, but in my view, this first novel holds great promise, and I am anxious to begin his just-released new book!

This book is an enjoyable, non-stop read! It is NOT a book of sex, violence or corrupted values. It is a FUN book to read--and we don't get enough of that anymore. Robin Pilcher has continued his mother's moral values! I have read all of her books and hope that I will be reading more of his!

I, too, am a big fan of Rosamunde Pilcher and was curious to see what a book by her son would be like. Overall, I found it to be an enjoyable, quick read, but the story had some unrealistic elements that I found hard to swallow. Would that we all, for example, when losing a spouse, could just abandon our kids and our aged parents in their mansion in Scotland and go off to the States. Does anyone but me find this behavior to be appallingly selfish? He runs off and leaves his poor father in the hands of unscrupulous colleagues who eventually cause him to have a stroke and die, for heaven's sake! I found the way that things worked out for David in the U.S. to be unlikely, as well. He ends up in a town that seems to be filled with saintly, wonderful human beings. He's in the US on a visitor visa and a complete stranger to everyone but manages to find a job with a snap of his fingers due to the kind nature of the (of course) wonderful guy who runs the agency. When David's new employer, Jennifer, gets sick by eating bad mussels (after commenting that they tasted funny but yet she still managed to suck up every one--wouldn't most of us have stopped eating by that point?), a doctor actually makes a HOUSE CALL! (This might still be possible in a small village in Scotland, Mr. Pilcher, but hardly ever in the US! That's why we have emergency rooms, and then you'd have to fight with your HMO to pay for it.) He takes the dog, Dodie, everywhere he goes, even on his first day on the job, and no one seems to object to this. He continually leaves the dog in the car, even on hot days, something that is considered dog abuse in the U.S. The dog has two teeth left and horrible halitosis, and this seems to be accepted. In the US, Mr. Pilcher, most responsible dog owners take care of their animals' dental hygiene! These latter items point out Mr. Pilcher's unfamiliarity with American habits and customs. I know that in Europe many people, for example, take their dogs to restaurants, but not here, and never, never to work on the first day of a job!!! These may seem like nit-picky things, but I kept pausing in my reading to say, "oh, come ON, now." And of course, the minute Jennifer and her son arrive in London and the son turns on the TV, there David is giving a speech in the House of Lords,and they are miraculously reunited! I know it is unfair to compare the son to the mother, but one of Mrs. Pilcher's strengths is the complete believability of her novels and the fact that her characters, while lovable, are by no means perfect. Mr. Pilcher's novel is a fairy tale, and if accepted on that basis is a nice escapist read for a summer day.

I enjoyed the book. I finished "An Ocean Apart" in 48 hours. It was a different twist in a romance novel for a man to be a victim of lifes foibles. I liked David being a hero -- superman. Why not read a book where the main character is there to save the day, especially after personal tragedy followed by self doubts and insecurities. I read to escape and relax so thanks Robin Pilcher for a fresh and interesting "read".

I am a fan of Rosamunde Pilcher, so I thought I would give her son a try. This is an enjoyable book, but not up to Rosamunde Pilcher's standards.

The plot of this book is engaging, but its hero is so improbable that the book fails to exercise quite the seductive charm that Ms Pilcher's books exude. While her books are improbable, they draw the reader in to their world, and the reader can positively delight in their very improbability. Robin is not quite at that level. The hero of this book is just too heroic, too much of a superman, to exert the charm that romances like this require. He is brilliant at everything (except barbecuing, a minor flaw) from tennis to giving preteens a powerful new sense of self-worth.

In addition to some deficiencies in characterizations, Robin has some verbal mannerisms that can be quite annoying and distracting. Ms Pilcher has some too (such as using the word "mouthful" when most writers would use the word "sip"), but one can forgive them in the gentle flow of her writing. Robin's are more oppressive, partly because some of them are grammatical errors as well. He has a tendency to allow phrases to dangle. One such appears on the back of the paperback edition: "Dispatched unexpectedly to New York, David's family hopes. . ." I was taught in junior high school to watch subjects: it is David who is sent to New York, not his family. (His family goes there eventually, but this sentence refers to his business trip.) I would have happily blamed this faux pas on an editor, assuming that Robin had not written the blurb on the back, but this is a mistake that recurs in the novel itself. He repeatedly uses the word "minute" to mean "moment," as in "at the minute" to mean "at the moment." He uses the word "flocks" to mean "phlox." Not major problems, and ones that a good editing could easily correct. But they are distracting.

Anyway, this was an enjoyable book. There is room for improvement, but it is an excellent start, and I look forward to more books from this author.

It's not Robin Pilcher's fault that his was the first Pilcher I could lay my hands on after finishing his mother Rosamunde's Winter Solstice. An Ocean Apart is a perfectly good romance, but not in the class of Winter Solstice.

David Costorphine is the son of a Scottish lord who has just lost his beloved wife Rachel to ovarian cancer. Devastated, he grabs an opportunity to stay in America where no one knows him or his sorrow. He ends up as the gardener for a high-powered woman on Long Island, NY. Her husband is away on business all the time and her son is basically being raised by the maid. Meanwhile, back in Scotland, corporate maneuvering is afoot to wrestle control of the family-owned whisky distillery into the hands of an evil conglomerate.

If this synopsis sounds appealing, you will enjoy this book. It's Long Island rather than Scotland that shines as a setting, which may disconcert an American reader, but David is a well-drawn character whose grief is well depicted. The author introduces him in a roundabout way, but once the action is underway the story finds its pace.

I really enjoyed the book! I got into it more after the first few chapters. Pilcher sets his the stage for the story before really taking off with the main theme, so you need to be little bit patient as he sets the tone. Emotions are expressed VERY well as you move through the story, and you can feel for the characters and their happenings throughout the book. As I read, I could form pictures in my mind of the background scenes and the characters which were written with wonderful descriptions and scenes.

"An Ocean Apart" by Robin Pilcher is an extremely interesting novel. Characters are described well, and I felt as if I knew them personally. The settings in this book are portrayed well, also. There are parts of the book where the author will be very detailed with the settings. However, I enjoyed this because it helped me understand exactly what was going on. In contrast, the plot seemed to get off tract sometimes. Even though it was interesting to read, the quickly changing scenes got a little confusing at times. Compared to other books, it had vivid explanations of characters. I did enjoy this novel, but could've done without some of the more boring parts of the book.

I have never read a book by the author's mother so this is a stand alone opinion based on the story itself. The premise of this novel is based on a man's wife dieing and him not being able to cope with this and withdrawing from his family and life. Luckily his family is rich enough that he does not need to go to work and can instead garden all day. I found this very insulting and demeaning to all the people who's spouse die and have to continue on after maybe a week of bereavement time from their jobs. My father passed away while my brother and I were in high school and my mother had no choice but to carry on. Does this mean her devastation was any less then the main characters? No. It is just that in real life people have to be stronger then the weak selfish main character presented here. If you can make it past this maybe you will find the novel entertaining.