Sometimes, though, ‘pleasant’ isn’t enough for me. It would be difficult not to love Kate and in fact, almost all of the characters are very easy to like – there are no villains in this book. The setting is certainly very pleasant, with some lovely, vivid descriptions of the countryside, with birds singing in the trees and flowers blooming in the meadows. If I had to describe Rose Cottage in one word, I think that word would be ‘pleasant’. When she arrives there, however, she discovers that someone else has been there before her – and as she begins to investigate, she starts to uncover some surprising secrets about her own past. Kate, who has been left a widow following the war, agrees to spend a few days at the cottage, going through some private papers that her grandmother had left behind. The end of World War II has brought many changes: Todhall is being converted into a hotel and Kate’s grandmother has moved to Scotland with the Brandon family, leaving Rose Cottage unoccupied. Kate grew up in a cottage on the estate and was raised by her grandmother, a servant working for Todhall’s owners, the Brandons. Rose Cottage is set in 1947 at Todhall, a large estate in the north east of England, and is narrated by Kate Herrick. The one I picked up next, Rose Cottage, probably wasn’t the best choice to follow up such a great book as Nine Coaches Waiting, but I was limited by what was available in my library at the time. After reading the wonderful Nine Coaches Waiting last month, I was desperate to read more Mary Stewart novels.
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