One of the greatest charms and also the biggest headache of Marcia Willett's writing is her network of interrelated characters, who tend to appear and reappear in varying levels of prominence in each of her novels. For this reason I am not sure if I have actually read this one before, but I think I have!
In this story, set in Cornwall, three distant cousins, Will, Beatrice, and Tessa, are thrown together as heirs to Mathilda Rainbird's seaside home. The three are very different in age or circumstances: Will is a retired widower, Beatrice is a spinster school matron who has recently left her job and found herself at loose ends, and Tessa is an orphaned 22 year-old-dog walker who longs for a family. Divorced and disgraced in her daughter's eyes, Isobel Stangate was Mathilda's housekeeper and continues to live in the estate cottage. The common thread in the lives of each of these four strangers is the longing for a family and a home. Willett has an admirable talent for zeroing in on the simple basics of life. In this case, the reader see clearly how the bonds that make a family are forged from love and companionship rather than close blood ties. I love the way that Willett's characters think and reason and care about one another without reservation. She has rightly been favorably compared to both Pilcher and Binchy and is, I think, becoming more popular here in the United States. She is certainly one of my favorites. In our current economic and moral climate Willett provides us with the opportunity to escape somewhere hopeful, warm, and comfortable.
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