Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart

 

Title:  Rose Cottage

Author:  Mary Stewart

Narrated by:  Samantha Eggar

Publisher: Phoenix Books, Inc.

Length: Approximately 3 hours and 14 minutes

Source: Checked out with Hoopla through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!   I also purchased a hardcover copy of this book at the Milwaukee Public Library used book sale many years ago.

Do you like to read at the library?  I used to when I was younger, but now I go to the library to pick up books or attend book club meetings and read elsewhere.

Kate (Kathy) Herrick returns to her childhood home, Rose Cottage, on an errand from her Grandmother to receive some family treasures from a safe in the wall.  When Kate arrives, she discovers the treasures are missing.  Who took them and why?  Will family secrets from the past be resolved?

I read this book for a Mary Stewart Buddy Read that @deesreads put together on Instagram.  I’m late in the game, but I was glad to join.  Rose Cottage was the book for June, and I got to it a bit late at the start of July.  I read a lot of Mary Stewart’s novels when I was in college.  I found them to be great escapism reading for taking my mind off my engineering studies.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       Rose Cottage is light romantic suspense set in the 1940s after WWII.

·       This novel was written towards the end of Mary Stewart’s life in the 1990s.  This novel was much more of a cozy read than her earlier works.  The entire novel had a sense of nostalgia woven into the story.

·       The mystery was ever evolving.  First it was, what happened to the valuables in Grandma’s safe, but overall, it was, who is Kathy’s father?

·       The romance was sweet but was more in the background of the story.

·       The book was a very short and quick read.

·       There was great character building and background in this short novel.  I enjoyed all the characters in the small village.  It was great for Kate to return to the place she grew up in after being widowed in WWII.

·       The audiobook was excellent.  Narrator Samantha Eggar did a great job of acting out the characters voices.

Overall, Rose Cottage is a short light romantic suspense novel that is a good comfort read.