The Long Way Home Book

Ho hum. Maybe two and a half stars. I was drawn to the setting of a Scottish mansion with exotic gardens and the literary legacy of the author, who is Rosamunde Pilcher's son. I kept reading because the plot had me somewhat interested, but I was only half-heartedly engaged. The depth of character was so flat as to be thinner than cardboard. I never felt any real connection with the protagonist Claire, who had suffered a bad breakup with her teenage best friend/sort-of boyfriend. She left Scotland, ended up in New York, met and married a wonderful man, with whom she had a successful business and a darling daughter. Yet the bad break-up of the past and the jealous rivalries of step siblings encroach upon her idyllic happiness. Yawn. Yes, I admit I was curious about what had precipitated the break-up shocker, which kept me reading. When it was ultimately revealed, I found it to be icky and implausible. The jealous step-brother and sister had no redeeming qualities, and their nastiness seemed all the more unrealistic because their father was depicted as kind, loving, generous, funny, warm-hearted, etc., etc. So, how did they turn out so unremittingly bad? In the end my curiosity had more to do with what was going to happen with the real estate dealings centered on the Scottish mansion than what was happening in the characters' lives. Not recommended.