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Coming Home
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Product Description
Book Description
A heartwarming story about a family at Christmas by the Irish No.1 bestselling author.
Product Description
Two sisters...two very different lives.
Alison's American dream is in tatters. Her highflying career is on the skids in the financial meltdown. Her Upper East Side apartment is now way beyond her means . But pride prevents her from telling her family back home just how bad things are. Olivia is fraught trying to juggle family, career, preparations for Christmas and organize a surprise party for their mother's seventieth birthday. How she envies, and sometimes resents, her sister Alison and her life of excitement and affluence in New York.
Coming home is the last thing Alison wants to do, especially now that she's met a rather attractive, sexy, down to earth neighbour who doesn't believe in 'non exclusive dating' unlike her wealthy boyfriend, Jonathan. But family ties are strong. Alison and Olivia sort their differences, the party throws up a few surprises and Christmas brings changes for Alison that she could never have imagined before coming home
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Since we're on the run up to Christmas, I thought I would insert some festive reading into my books for December - and decided to start with Coming Home by Patricia Scanlan. I have read a few of Scanlan's novels and, although light, find them generally enjoyable. They are usually large, sprawling and very Irish novels, with a warm heart, which was what I expected to find in Coming Home.
Instead I got a rushed novel - seemingly produced to cash in on the Christmas market. The characters were two dimensional, the moralising was to extreme levels and the twee Irish references littered the book. I was very disappointed.
The plot (such as it is) deals with Alison Dunwoody, a high flying exec living in New York who loses her job thanks to the recession, and her sister Olivia, who chose to stay in Ireland, get married and have children. And... that's it. Alison goes home for Christmas. She tries to hide the fact she's lost her job from her family. She and Olivia have an argument about who has the worst life. She sort of meets a chap called JJ. Nothing happens in this book, seriously! I expected tension. There are three elderly relatives in this book and I was thinking one of them might become ill or something? Nope. Just Alison spending time with her family for Christmas. This could easily have been a short story - it is probably a novella, rather than a novel anyway - with the little dramatic tension it provides.
And that moralising? Sickeningly all-encompassing. Alison learns that money is the root of all evil. She discovers that family is more important than any high-flying executive job. She realises that wealth should not be measured in material items. Ugh. Saccharine sweet and cloying - and written into the story with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
I also found the "Irish-isms" ridiculous - Scanlan tried to write the dialogue phonetically, which made it difficult to read at times and very cutesy. On the other hand, when she dealt with Alison's life in New York, it felt like she had used Wikipedia to research fashion and lifestyle; it felt so artificial and shoe-horned in.
There were a couple of bright moments in the story, but in the main this was a mess of dire proportions - a cash in on Christmas and Scanlan's name. Borderline offensive in terms of how bad it is. Avoid.
Instead I got a rushed novel - seemingly produced to cash in on the Christmas market. The characters were two dimensional, the moralising was to extreme levels and the twee Irish references littered the book. I was very disappointed.
The plot (such as it is) deals with Alison Dunwoody, a high flying exec living in New York who loses her job thanks to the recession, and her sister Olivia, who chose to stay in Ireland, get married and have children. And... that's it. Alison goes home for Christmas. She tries to hide the fact she's lost her job from her family. She and Olivia have an argument about who has the worst life. She sort of meets a chap called JJ. Nothing happens in this book, seriously! I expected tension. There are three elderly relatives in this book and I was thinking one of them might become ill or something? Nope. Just Alison spending time with her family for Christmas. This could easily have been a short story - it is probably a novella, rather than a novel anyway - with the little dramatic tension it provides.
And that moralising? Sickeningly all-encompassing. Alison learns that money is the root of all evil. She discovers that family is more important than any high-flying executive job. She realises that wealth should not be measured in material items. Ugh. Saccharine sweet and cloying - and written into the story with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
I also found the "Irish-isms" ridiculous - Scanlan tried to write the dialogue phonetically, which made it difficult to read at times and very cutesy. On the other hand, when she dealt with Alison's life in New York, it felt like she had used Wikipedia to research fashion and lifestyle; it felt so artificial and shoe-horned in.
There were a couple of bright moments in the story, but in the main this was a mess of dire proportions - a cash in on Christmas and Scanlan's name. Borderline offensive in terms of how bad it is. Avoid.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A typical festive, feel good story. Believeable plot and characters. A nice read for the Xmas holidays. If you want something which isn't too taxing on the old grey matter then this is for you. Girlie read.
20 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Absolutely gutted. I love Patricia Scanlan and this was such a let down. I should have realised from the size of the book when I bought it. It's about a third of the width of her usual novels, which are usually a nice comforting brick size. However, on top of that though, the last 1/4 of the book are acknowledgements and a prologue of her next one!! Annoying.
In terms of the story, it is familiar stuff for those who like Scanlan. Family bonds, family rifts, sentimentality - stuff I used to like but somehow it's all getting a bit samey and stale now. Plus, some phrases keep cropping up again and again. By the third time I had read about "coming home being the balm for the soul" I was getting a bit fed up with it.
WIth regards to the plot, the story seems to just get going and then it ends! Some story lines are just not developed enough - a family rift is touched upon but come uppance is so swiftly dished out, it is before we have time to stew and look forward to it. Its all a bit weird the way it's done to be honest- like an abridged version of a full fat novel. Did time run out? Pressing deadline? Couldn't be bothered? Who knows.
Sorry to say - a complete let down. Think fans will be disappointed with this. What happened Patricia??
In terms of the story, it is familiar stuff for those who like Scanlan. Family bonds, family rifts, sentimentality - stuff I used to like but somehow it's all getting a bit samey and stale now. Plus, some phrases keep cropping up again and again. By the third time I had read about "coming home being the balm for the soul" I was getting a bit fed up with it.
WIth regards to the plot, the story seems to just get going and then it ends! Some story lines are just not developed enough - a family rift is touched upon but come uppance is so swiftly dished out, it is before we have time to stew and look forward to it. Its all a bit weird the way it's done to be honest- like an abridged version of a full fat novel. Did time run out? Pressing deadline? Couldn't be bothered? Who knows.
Sorry to say - a complete let down. Think fans will be disappointed with this. What happened Patricia??
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
tedious waffle
I actually gave up and didn't even bother to read the end, I didn't care, that say's it all. I am getting a little fed up with certain authors and the blatant fashion name... Read more
Published 1 month ago by bookworm
Should have been a short story...
This review is going to be short and sweet because, basically, I don't really have anything nice to say about it and as it's Christmastime and as people don't want to read... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Leah Graham
Different to others by Scanlan
Coming Home is very, very different to Patricia Scanlan's other novels, so different, in fact, that I found it hard to believe she'd actually written it. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Miss L. D. Masters
Coming Home - disappointing
I love Patricia Scanlan but I found "Coming Home" disappointing and agree with the other bad reviews. Read more
Published 15 months ago by judith roycroft
Shockingly Lightweight!
I usually enjoy this author's work, but this book was really disappointing.
There was no real story, just a bunch of one dimensional 'characters', a repetitive lecture... Read more
There was no real story, just a bunch of one dimensional 'characters', a repetitive lecture... Read more
Published 16 months ago by book girl
Coming Home
This book is based on two sisters, who both lead very different lifes. Alison lives in USA and has just lost her job and had to move into a studio appartment and is using her... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Karen Gooderham
Lovely Christmas Read
This is a perfect Christmas read. The story is of 2 sisters, one with a high flying career in the USA and the other is a mum back in Ireland. Read more
Published 16 months ago by J. S. P
Nice Christmas read
I enjoyed this book. I do agree with some of the other reviews about it being cut short, hence the 4 stars. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Sandra
Coming Home - Patricia Scanlan
Alison and Olivia are our two main characters here and, as it says in the summary, both are very different. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Carly Bennett
disappointing
I love Patricia Scanlan, and was very much looking forward to her new novel. I was, however, disappointed as it was a very short novel, and did not have as much substance to the... Read more
Published 17 months ago by jef
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