Voices in Summer (book)

Rosamunde Pilcher Voices in Summer (1984) An old-fashioned, discreet, and nice romance. Nothing much happens. The flyleaf blurb says Pilcher creates fine wholesome characters, but the fact is they’re so bland that they’re not very interesting. There’s a mild mystery, which is resolved when Silvia, a widow,  admits to having written poison pen letters in order to capture her childhood sweetheart Alec by turning him against his young wife, Laura. But even that revelation lacks tension, in part because Silvia’s bundled off decently and discreetly to a mental hospital.
     Laura supposed to be devastated by the death of her dog, but you can’t persuade a reader by telling him she’s depressed, you have to show it. Also, she’s recovering from some mysterious operation that is supposed to fix her womb so she can have a long-desired baby, but I for one don’t believe it matters all that much to her. The divorced Alec’s child by his first wife shows up (and conveniently falls in love with Alec’s uncle’s stepson Ivan, and he with her), the old nanny is going senile, and so on.
     All potentially very interesting stuff, with lots of scope for tensions, unresolved conflicts, and ancient hurts, but Pilcher glides over the surface of these matters like one of those water-striding insects over a pond. Scarcely a ripple disturbs the placid surface of the charmed upper-middle-class life of these people. It’s all too nice to be true. It’s frustrating when one can see ways of improving the story, both in style and substance. Pilcher apparently has achieved some fame since the 80s as a minor Maeve Binchy, but I won’t be reading another one. I will sample Binchy, though. Well-written soap-opera can have great interest. * (2000)