The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher

Newly widowed Virginia Keile, 27, has to come to terms with her present circumstances following the death of her husband in a car accident. As a mother to two young children, Virginia must learn to stand up for herself and decide the direction she wants her life to take. After renting a house in Cornwall, she encounters her first love, which complicates her decisions about her identity and desires.

Pilcher wrote some absolutely fantastic books. Three of her novels (September, Winter Solstice, and The Shell Seekers) elicited a response from me that has been a high I’ve been chasing ever since. Largely centered around family (both birth and found), when Pilcher got it right, as in those three, she really knocked it out of the park. However, as I’ve explored more of her backlist, I find that most of her other stories feature protagonists who are overwrought, angsty, and predictable, as seen here with The Empty House.

When Pilcher captures cozy just right, her novels exhibit all the warmth and familiarity that make that element work for both the author and the story. But here, as with most of her earlier work, everything shifts beyond cozy and quaint and veers into being twee and tiresome. Virginia oscillates between being realistic and really frustrating. The first love, Eustace, is fairly one-dimensional, and though the two have marginal chemistry, their connection, even considering the time in which this was written, borders on instant love.

I liked the idea of Pilcher’s Cornwall setting here — the author was born there — but she leaned too far into purple prose alongside her angsty, whining Virginia for it to be as immersive as it could have been.

All that aside, I still recommend the three previously mentioned books — they are absolute gems.

Audiobook, as narrated by Helen Johns: I've encountered Johns performing the narration for a Pilcher novel before and I find her voice is perfectly suited to the task — even when the task isn't quite up to snuff, so to speak. I felt as though Johns softened the blow of the overly angsty protagonist, Virginia, and I'd absolutely listen to her narration again.