Is Rosamunde Pilcher aimed at a particular age group or demographic ?

I loved Coming Home as a teenager and often reread it, I don't find it at all twee - it's pretty gritty at times in depicting the horrors of war. I agree that Winter Solstice and the 'modern-day' parts of The Shell Seekers can feel a bit dated - I think, like most writers, she's better at writing young people who were contemporaneous with her own youth.
And men do tend to remarry quickly after becoming widowed! It's a recognised phenomenon.

@RJnomore1
You have nothing to say about the male character Oscar, marrying his first wife, a very wealthy widow just weeks after her first husband's funeral. Bit sexist there.

Winter Solstice is the worst one.

Enjoyed The Shellseekers and Coming Home tho.

Joanna Trollope is another writer for ladies of a certain type.
I find her very AGA-centric…

First read Coming Home in my early teens after watching it at my Grandma's house.

I love that book. I'm sure I've read some of her others, but they haven't stayed with me.

Maybe I should cast aside my cynicism and take a look. I could do with a comfort read. Perhaps Mrs Mallory will fit the bill, thank you best

The detective equivalent of Rosamund Pilcher is Hazel Holt’s Mrs Malory who solves crimes in between baking for the WI, walking the dog and being treasurer of the Art society in a small town in Devon. I love her.

Is she the literary equivalent to Midsommer Murders or Rosemary and Thyme?
What Charlie Brooker referred to as the Mimsy Squad?!
Inexplicably popular in Germany for reasons I can't quite fathom.
But they still watch Dinner For One every New Year, so I'll never understand them.

Well, it's a chance you take when you search on books/authors/TV threads.

I read the Shellseekers and Coming home maybe 25 years ago and remember really enjoying them, then read Winter Solstice a few years ago after a thread on here and found it too twee and unbelievable, maybe my tastes have changed. I did pick up the Shellseekers for 99p on Kindle a while ago and am going to try it again to see if I still enjoy that one.

I was bemused by the way RP made the bereaved husband’s wife an alcoholic who drunk-drove and got herself killed, so it seemed more okay when he started nobbing her friend more or less at the wake.

DM used to love Rosamunde Pilcher books and was probably the target audience at the time. Lower middle class, Radio 4 listener, a child during the war and dedicated to church and the WI.
She’d be 92 now.

It was published nearly 24 years ago 😊 I’ve ruined books for myself before by googling too.

Shit. Idly searched Mumsnet for Rosamunde Pilcher, to see what people think of her, as have just started Winter Solstice.
That is one hell of a spoiler.

Even though Winter Solstice was written in 2000 it has a very, very 1950s vibe to it. There's a lot of emphasis placed on personal faith/religion, and the angst over having sex when you're not actually married (like, really?). The 20 year old son of the vicar, who has a creepy interest in the 14 year old girl. Er, grooming, hello? The inference that al women really need to be content is to marry young, push out babies and cook lovely meals in the Aga.

And, yes hated that the male protagonist loses his wife and young daughter at the end of the Summer. And that by Christmas he's completely recovered and happily re-marries.

I'm reading Day of the Storm, absolutely love it

It has such a lovely nostalgic feel of the early 70s

I tried reading The Shellseekers when on holiday in Cornwall and gave up. Found it all rather dated and clichéd.

Always amazed that so many people love it.

I knew RP's niece many years ago. The niece was lovely (would now be in her late 50s) and pretty posh: the "did a season as chalet girl and worked as a nanny to other posh people before getting married" type, and RP was the slightly elderly and much beloved aunt. Rather the way Raymond West regards Miss Marple in some of the later Agatha Christie books!

I think it may be the particular audiobook reader for that one, OP. I was so disappointed by the sample on the Audible website. Coming Home has a much better reader.

@SquirrelFan YES! I love that blog! It's my go-to Betty resource! I don't necessarily agree with all their takes on Bettydom, but I love their reviews. I also tried Essie Summers because of them!

@ValuableLimeLesson I love Betty Neels too! (as well as Rosamund Pilcher). Have you seen the blog, The Uncrushable Jersey Dress? It's not been updated for years but is a real homage by true fans!

Count how many times she uses the words ‘scrubbed table’ in every book. Once I noticed it irritated me a lot, and ‘from time to time’, too.

I re read Coming Home every year during my Cornwall holiday.
I haven’t read Winter Solstice for years , I suppose as it’s set in the more recent past it seems more dated, if that makes sense!
I love the descriptions of the houses in Coming Home, especially the Dower House .

I'm in my early 40s and love RP books. Coming home and Shell Seekers are my favourites. Comfy and cosy books. I read Winter Solstice at Xmas time and the others in the summer. September is sometimes read in September but I'm not overly keen on it.

Yes, Winter Soltice was written almost a quarter of a century ago, but the world it's set in is more like the 1950s or 60s.

It's a while since I read it, but I seem to remember some of the characters being confused by these new-fangled things called computers, or some such.

And the treatment of the young teenage girl... basically too much bother for her mother and grandmother (I think, again, it's been a while) and the only thing for it is for her to go to Scotland to be with relatives she doesn't know.

Agree, although I do love Winter Solstice I do have to not think about the timeline too much. I'm kind of like that with the whole book, I know its nonsense but when I want an easy read I really enjoy it, I think she sets scenes really well, I can imagine the houses and places and they are places I'd like to be.