Flowers in the Rain (and other stories) (by Rosamunde Pilcher

(Amazon UK link)

I have loved everything I have read by Rosamunde Pilcher. I think I have all her books on my shelves. Since she is in her nineties and no longer writing, I am re-reading her books, mostly for the third or fourth time. I have just finished ‘Flowers in the Rain’, which is a collection of short stories rather than a novel. They had all been previously published in magazines, sometimes with different titles.

I found that my memory was somewhat patchy concerning this book. The first story, ‘The Doll’s House’, is beautifully written. It’s about a young boy, who lost his father a year or two back, and is attempting to make a doll’s house for his sister from a kit. I had remembered how it ended, but still found it moving and encouraging.

However, I had entirely forgotten the second story, about a young man who travels to Scotland for his great-aunt’s 75th birthday party. The characters, as with all Pilcher’s people, are realistic and three-dimensional, and it’s a pleasant story but not particularly memorable.

I hadn’t remembered the story which gave the title to the book, either. And there were a few more which, though enjoyable to read, didn’t have all that much of a story. That’s not necessarily a problem - indeed it means I will most likely have forgotten them again by the next time I re-read this collection, probably in another eight or nine years.

Then I reached ‘The Watershed’. It’s about a woman in her fifties who lives with her husband in a large house seven miles from the nearest shop. She’s finding it a bit overwhelming, and is generally feeling low. So she wonders about buying a smaller house in the village where she shops. Her husband won’t be keen, though… I wasn’t at all sure where the story was going, and it wasn’t until the last pages when I remembered the ending vaguely; I had tears in my eyes three or four pages before the end, and had to get a couple of tissues when I had finished. It’s the most moving story I have read for a long time.

There are other good stories in this book, which made excellent bedtime reading as they’re all gentle, all uplifting in some sense, all positive and hopeful. And of course they are all complete in themselves, so there are no cliffhangers, although in some cases the ending was left somewhat open; perhaps that’s better than tying all the threads together, as it left me thinking about what might happen to the people concerned.

Rosamunde Pilcher’s greatest strength, in my view, was always her characterisation. In just a few sentences she created people I cared about, and in many cases could empathise with. If she had a fault, it was in her conversations which sometimes come across as a little stilted. But it’s a minor issue, one I can gloss over since the stories are so well-written.

Definitely recommended to anyone who enjoys gentle short stories of the kind found in some women’s magazines.

Review by Sue F copyright 2018 Sue's Book Reviews