Rose Cottage: A brilliant, gentle love story from the Queen of the Romantic Mystery

by Mary Stewart

Overview

'Vivid, enthralling, absolutely first class' Daily Mail

Summer, 1947. Kate Herrick, widowed in the war, returns to Rose Cottage, her childhood home, to retrieve a few family papers before the house is sold. But Rose Cottage is not the idyllic paradise she remembers from her childhood. The papers themselves are missing, and neighbours tell stories of night-time prowlers. Kate discovers that the long shadow of an old secret lies over the house, and in bringing Rose Cottage into the light she will finally be forced to confront the truth of her own past.

Beyond the weedy garden with its riot of rose bushes, nothing had changed. The beck, wide here and quiet, slid past below the bridge. Willows and wild roses, cuckoo pint and king cups, and a wood pigeon crooning in the elms. And someone crossing the bridge to approach the garden gate. Someone I knew well...

Mary Stewart's last novel, Rose Cottage is a classic of her writing. Featuring a sparky heroine, an exceptional eye for detail, romance, intrigue and the gentle promise of a bright future, Rose Cottage is a must-read for all fans... and everyone who loves a good story beautifully told.

'There are few to equal Mary Stewart' Daily Telegraph

'A comfortable chair and a Mary Stewart: total heaven. I'd rather read her than most other authors' Harriet Evans

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781444715101
Publisher:	Hodder
Publication date:	05/26/2011
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	13,706
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Mary Stewart was one of the 20th century's bestselling and best-loved novelists. She was born in Sunderland, County Durham in 1916, but lived for most of her life in Scotland, a source of much inspiration for her writing. Her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk? was published in 1955 and marked the beginning of a long and acclaimed writing career. In 1971 she was awarded the International PEN Association's Frederick Niven Prize for The Crystal Cave, and in 1974 the Scottish Arts Council Award for one of her children's books, Ludo and the Star Horse. She was married to the Scottish geologist Frederick Stewart, and died in 2014.

Editorial Reviews

In an old-fashioned romantic tale, veteran novelist Stewart (My Brother Michael, etc.) paints a nostalgic portrait of a dying way of life in rural post-WWII Britain. Young Kate Herrick, a newly wealthy war widow, is sent by her grandmother to retrieve some furniture and family heirlooms from Todhall, where the older woman was cook to the titled Brandon family. Kate, or Kathy (as everyone in Todhall village calls her), was born out of wedlock and raised by her grandmother after her mother "ran away with the gypsies." Kathy never knew who her father wasit may have been a gypsy or even Sir Brandon. The mystery may be untangled by papers left in the safe her grandmother has instructed her to empty; when Kathy manages to crack the safe, however, with the aid of good-looking young carpenter Davey Pascoe, it's empty. Then the local mystic claims to have seen Kathy's mother and a gypsy in the cemetery standing over her grandfather's grave. The harassing question of Kathy's parentage, the plundered safe, her class status (Kathy Welland or Kate Herrick? London widow or Todhall cottager?) and her perhaps forever-broken heart, are all resolved in one long night of tea and buttered toast, during which half the village seems to crowd into the tiny cottage kitchen. Stewart writes a bit like the old milk pony, Rosy, who knows her route by heart. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

For the frazzled Anglophile, the countryside-enamored reader, here's a bit of romance, light mystery, and the reassuring stability of a timeless English village—in short, another Stewart comforter (The Stormy Petrel, 1991, etc.).

Here, a young widow returns in 1947 to her childhood home and the enigma of her parentage. Kate Herrick, née Welland, who lost her husband in the war, is summoned to Scotland by her beloved grandmother, formerly a cook in the household of Sir James Brandon. She asks Kate to return to their native village in the north of England, where Kate was raised by Gran and severe Aunt Betsy. Kate's mother Lilias, who'd become pregnant while serving at the Brandons' estate, had left Kate at six, never to return. Gran had told Kate that she had "gone with the gipsies," but some years later Kate learned that her mother and new husband had been killed in Ireland in a bus accident. Now, Kate is to come again to Gran's Rose Cottage, long shuttered, charged with shipping some of Gran's belongings to her in Scotland and with locating a neatly hidden safe containing family items of sentimental value. But someone has broken into the cottage, ripped out the safe, and removed its contents. Then there are strange rumors of odd appearances, generated mainly by the "Witches Corner"—comprised of two gossipy ladies, as well as a feathery individual who's sure she has "the sight" and has seen a dead woman digging in the cottage yard and piling flowers on the grave of mean Aunt Betsy. With the help of young Davey, son of old family friends, and scraps of information from neighbors, Kate will at last discover an absent mother and a name for an unknown father.

Soothing as a warm brew on a cold night are Stewart's satisfying denouements—and environs: ". . . willows and wild roses, cuckoo-pint and king cups, and a wood pigeon crooning in the elm." Mild doings in enchanting surroundings.

Kirkus Reviews

"A rare treat . . . charming . . . delightful. . . . There is just enough suspense to keep you turning the pages well into the night." —Denver Post



"For the frazzled Anglophile, the countryside-enamored reader, here's a bit of romance, light mystery, and the reassuring stability of a timeless English village—in short, another Stewart comforter. . . . Soothing as a warm brew on a cold night are Stewart's satisfying denouements—and environs." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher