Anyone want a chat/nit pick about The Shell Seekers?

[MorrisZapp]

I saw this book on my granny's shelf many years ago and assumed to be like a Mills and Boon, but then a friend recommended it so I bought it from amazon.

It's wonderful, a true family saga that wafts and weaves back and forth in time and between places. A true comfort book packed with lush British scenery, cultured characters and social history.

But christ it's long. There's a full page description of a man changing a lightbulb and two pages given to a toddlers birthday party.

I admit I started scanning over some pages. Her biggest crime though is the character of Danus Muirfield.

Muirfield is a golf course, not a surname, and according to the voters roll Danus isn't a name at all. I could forgive that if he didn't live in Heriot Row and keep an 18 year old model at arms length because he has 'nothing to give her yet'. Lol for days at that one.

I suppose it's weird that to us, it's a double period piece. It features the war, and the eighties. When it was written, it was contemporary with a forty year throwback.

I couldn't work out how Penelope's children grew up to be so different, or how she managed to produce such a repellent son. I thought this would be answered but it wasn't. Names matter a lot to me in books, and he wasn't a Noel in my judgement. Olivia was the only one who truly inhabited her name.

Anyway I'll keep my eyes peeled in charity shops for her other stuff, it's a perfect autumn treat.

And isn't it The Shell Seekers where the two women successfully prepare a huge meal together, "chopping and cooking without a word of shared language"?

Such a beautiful, companionable description of the shared experiences of women the world over, with a language in common beyond words.

Perfectly describes the preparations for my best friend's wedding – remembering that scene reassured me it would all come out OK! And it did!

There's lots wrong with this book. When Lawrence's best friend dies, he asks Lawrence to take care of his young daughter. Instead, Lawrence starts having sex with her when she is only 16 and he's in his 50s FFS. But it's perfectly acceptable because he's an artist and bohemian and everything. Anyway, she climbed in bed with him the first time so she seduced him, and he was powerless to resist. She was 16! He was middle aged!

The implication that if you're an educated, independent, career woman like Olivia, who enjoys expensive clothes and luxury, you are doomed to end up lonely and childless. But if you're a bit dim, don't care about clothes, happiest cooking and gardening and meekly wait for a man to notice you, like Antonia, then your life will be completely rewarding and satisfying.

And don't get me started on Danus and Antonia. Again she is a lot younger than him, he treats her quite badly but she still trails after him like a puppy. Then he suspiciously decides to marry her when he realises she has been given Lawrence Stern's etchings. They sell them and he uses the money to set up his market garden business.

The horrible implication that if you're overweight, like Nancy and her daughter, then you are ridiculed and have a greedy, selfish nature. Penelope even describes her chubby granddaughter as being pig like!

I did eventually grow to love the Cazalets but found the hy-uge cast really, really confusing at first. I think on balance I prefer a bit of Pilcher.

You are of course right though fizzfizz - there are a lot of problems in Shellseekers and the Lawrence/Sophie relationship is particularly ick.

@Trewser- no I haven’t- but I will, thank you!

I love Penny Vincenzi for a good long family saga.

Ew, I'd obviously forgotten the details of the Lawrence/Sophie relationship.

Antonia's not "a bit dim", though. She also isn't meek and wasn't given the oil sketches; Penelope gave them to Danus.

PerkingFaintly, it's details like that which I love

fizzfizzplinkplink I interpreted taht quite differently, I thought that as Nancy (and daughter Melanie)w ere self obsesses, uncharming and snobby the writer took the liberty by making them fat and greedy

if that makes sense

Actually.... Does it?!

The way she made all the characters that she (the writer) liked slim and goodlooking is actually maybe a bit

I guess it was acceptable in the 80s

Jeezo, have downloaded Coming Home and it's all becoming clear - basically, everyone in Pilcher is in an age-gap inappropriate relationship! Diana marries Carey-Lewis when she's like 17 and he's in his 30s, Judith is nearly raped by old man Billy, and in the meantime she's falling in love with the young doctor when she's 14 and he's at least 25...

I've read Shell Seekers at least twice, but don't remember any of those things happening. That means I can safely read it again

I've read all the Pilchers and I even have her book about Christmas

I found it so weird that Sophie was Penelopes mother. It never felt like a maternal relationship, more like Sophie was the au pair or something.

I wasn't sure how the first husband went from hotty to lukewarm so quickly, he seemed quite promising but was only discussed later in his absence.

My favourite passage is the bit when she sells the panels and goes shopping to treat herself and Antonia. I love a good list of glittering prizes!

Actually I think Carey-Lewis was in his fifties when Diana married him. But it was perfectly acceptable because apparently he had always been in love with her anyway. So, like even before she was 17 then? So when she was in her early teens? A pre-teen? Because it's perfectly normal for a middle-aged man to have a romantic interest in a 14 year old girl, or younger!!!

I love Coming Home - I read it 20 years ago, working overseas and terribly homesick, and as I grew up in Devon and spent many happy camping weekends in Cornwall, it was simultaneously comforting and tear jerking!

To be fair, there was a reason for the Diana/Carey-Lewis marriage other than dodgy lust ...

And old man Billy is presented as being rather grim, rather than something acceptable, and I can completely see a 14 year old girl getting a crush on an older boy/young man.

As you might guess from my defence, it is still a comfort read for me

@Allington it's kept me plenty amused this weekend, I still love it!